George Carlin... It's Bad for Ya! (2008) Movie Script
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'd like to begin -
I'd like to -
Thank you. Thank you.
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.
There's another jack-off
I can do without.
I'm tired of being told who
to admire in this country.
Aren't you sick of being told
who your heroes ought to be?
Being told who you ought
to be looking up to.
I'll choose my own heroes,
thank you very much.
And fuck Dr. Phil too.
Dr. Phil said
I should express my emotions,
so that's what I'm doing.
Now, since the last time I
rolled through these parts -
and I do roll through
with some frequency.
I'm a little bit like herpes.
I keep coming back.
But since the last time I might
have seen some of you folks
I have had my 70th birthday.
So I'm at -
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, I'm now 70 years old,
and I like 70.
Not as much as I liked 69.
Well, 69 was always
my favorite number.
Now I figure I'm 69
with one finger up my ass.
But now that I'm an old fuck
- and that's what I
consider myself to be -
an old fuck.
Old fuck is a very special term.
It's not like old man.
Old man is different.
Old man isn't really a time in
your life or a period of years.
It's an attitude.
Old man is a point of view.
It's a way of looking at things.
Some guys are old men when
they're in their 20's.
You've met guys like that.
They're just wired like old men.
Not me.
Not an old man
and not an old fart
because an old fart is kind of -
What I am is an old fuck.
It's kind of like a fat fuck,
you know what I mean?
Fat fuck, tall fuck,
skinny fuck, short fuck,
old fuck.
Who's the old fuck?
That's Georgie.
Georgie's the old fuck.
In this respect, fuck is actually
a synonym for the word fellow.
But now that I'm an old fuck
I'm beginning to notice
there's some advantages to
putting on a few extra years.
The first one is
you never have to carry
anything heavy ever again.
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.
You say, "Yeah, could
you help me with this?"
Say, "Yeah.
Hey, how far you going?"
"Indianapolis."
He wants to help?
Fuck him. Put him to work.
Take advantage of people.
Another nice thing about
getting old is
you can leave any social event
early just by saying you're tired.
Works great
with family members.
Just turn to the person
next to you and say,
"Geez, I'm getting tired,
you know."
Oh, are you tired?
Come on.
Grandpa's tired.
Grandpa's going to bed.
Someone else says,
"But it's 7:30 in the morning."
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."
I forgot.
You can even make believe you
have Alzheimer's disease.
Ah, it's a lot of fun.
You look around the dining
room table and you say,
"Who are you people,
and where is my horse?"
Then you stare at your
eldest son and say,
"Agnes, I haven't seen you
since first communion."
Fucks them up.
Fucks them up.
They don't know how to handle it.
It takes them a week
to get over that shit.
And they start listening to you
a lot more carefully from then on.
So don't be afraid to get old.
It's a great time of life.
You get to take
advantage of people,
and you're not
responsible for anything.
You can even
shit in your pants.
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.
Perhaps that's not the figure
of speech I wanted right there.
So you know what
I've been doing?
Going through my address book
and crossing out the dead people.
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 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 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.
Out you fucking go.
You got to have
standards, you know.
Now, these days a lot of people don't
keep analog address books anymore.
They don't want to be writing
that stuff out longhand.
They're in the computer age.
And they have an application in
the computer called Outlook
or Contacts or Address Book
or something like that.
So they keep all the
information in the computer,
and they sync it up with their
phone every day or every other day.
So now instead of
scratching out a name
you get to delete the fuck.
And deleting someone is an even
more powerful feeling
than simply
scratching out a name.
You know how to delete someone.
You select a name,
highlight the person
and then poof,
straight into the trash.
Now, if it's a really close
friend of yours
you might not want to empty
the trash for about six weeks.
Or, if it's a
little too harsh for you,
a little too harsh to
delete an old friend,
you can always
create a new folder,
a special folder
for dead people.
You keep it on your desktop.
It's kind of a
digital purgatory.
And the nice thing
is every now and then
you can open it up,
and you can look inside.
And you can see the
people in purgatory.
You can move them all around,
you know. Move them around.
Put them in little groups.
Two people who didn't get along in life,
put them in the corner;
let them work it out.
Let them work out in purgatory.
Or start a fight.
Have a big fight in purgatory.
That's a lot of fun.
Nobody's gonna get hurt.
They're a fucking dead anyway.
Then you put them in a big
formation and have a parade -
the purgatory parade
of dead people.
Ah, there's a lot of fun you
can have with a computer,
so enjoy your digital selves.
Now, speaking of dead people,
there things we say
when someone dies -
most of us say,
a lot of us do -
things we say
that no one ever questions.
They just kind of go unexamined.
I'll give you a
couple of examples.
After someone dies the following
conversation is bound to take place
probably more than once.
Two guys meet on the street.
"Hey, did you hear?
Phil Davis died."
"Phil Davis?
I just saw him yesterday."
Yeah?
Didn't help.
He died anyway.
Apparently the simple act of your
seeing him did not slow his cancer down.
In fact, it may have
made it more aggressive.
You know, you could be
responsible for Phil's death.
How do you live with yourself?
Here's another thing
they say after a death.
This is usually said to
the surviving spouse.
"Listen, if there's anything
I can do, anything at all,
please don't hesitate to ask."
What are you going to
do, a resurrection?
This ain't the fucking
New Testament, you know.
You know what you tell a guy
like that who wants to help?
Well fine, why don't you
come over this weekend.
You can paint the garage.
Bring your plunger.
The upstairs toilet overflowed
and there's shit
all over the floor up there.
Do you drive a tractor?
Good. That'll come in handy.
The north 40 needs
a lot of attention.
Bring your chainsaw
and your pickaxe.
We're going to put
your ass to work.
He wants to help?
Fuck him. Call his bluff.
Call his bluff.
"Don't hesitate to ask."
The nerve of these pricks.
Here's another thing we say
to the surviving spouse.
"I'm keeping him
in my thoughts."
Where?
Where exactly in your
thoughts does he fit?
In between my ass hurt in this
chair and let's fuck the waitress?
What are your priorities?
We use a lot of euphemisms when
we talk about death, you know.
People say things like,
"You know, I lost my father."
Ah, he'll turn up.
You've got to stay optimistic
with people like that.
Give them reason to hope.
Have you checked the
dumpster out back?
He used to like to
take a nap in there.
Keep it upbeat.
Now, there's something else
that is said after a death,
but this one involves belief,
which is where I begin to have
big problems.
This one happens after the funeral,
after the burial, back at the house.
Back at the house
where the family
and friends and the loved ones
of the deceased are
having some food and drink,
and they're enjoying
some warm reminiscences
of the person who passed away,
sooner or later, someone is
bound to say the following,
especially after a few drinks.
"You know, I think he's up
there now smiling down at us,
and I think he's pleased."
Now, first of all,
there is no "up there"
no, no
for people to be
smiling down from.
It's poetic. It's quaint.
And I guess for superstitious
people it provides a little comfort,
but it doesn't exist.
But if it did, if it did,
and if someone did somehow survive
death in the non-physical form,
I personally think he'd be far too
busy with other celestial activities
than to be
standing around paradise
smiling down
on live people.
What kind of fucking
eternity is that?
And why is no one ever says,
"I think he's down there now,
smiling up at us."
Apparently it never occurs to people
that their loved ones might be in hell.
Your parents could
be in hell right now.
Your parents -
your father for sure.
Oh, shit.
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.
People just refuse
to be realistic.
They don't like to be realistic.
People would rather
stroke themselves, you know.
Oh, they like to stroke
themselves, don't they?
Stroke themselves.
They stroke each other.
They get stroked.
They stroke the boss.
The boss strokes them.
Everybody strokes everybody.
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 -
yeah. Yeah.
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.
It's all bullshit folks.
It's all bullshit,
and it's bad for you.
Now, speaking of dead
people in heaven,
there are some people
who not only believe
that their dead parents
in heaven can see them
- okay,
okay -
they honestly believe that their
dead parents in heaven can help them.
You've heard these
people, I'm sure.
They honestly somehow believe
that their dead parents in heaven
can intercede with God on their
behalf to gain favors for the living.
I come from a Catholic home.
I heard this shit.
They sit there in the chair
with the fucking rosary,
and they look at you
like this, you know.
And they said "Oh, my dad.
My dad was looking out for me.
He was looking out.
I don't know how he got me out
of that jam, but he got me out.
Oh, my mom - my mom
was in surgery with me.
She was in - I could feel
her presence in there."
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fine.
Like the people who die
have nothing better to do
than run the heavenly branch
of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Now,
if people want to believe
this kind of stuff
it's fine with me.
Let them believe it.
I don't want to disabuse
anyone of their beliefs.
But I have a
question about this,
a question that involves logic.
Let's suppose it's true.
Let's allow the
proposition that somehow
dead parents in heaven can
help their living children.
Fine.
So we've got a family living on earth,
a father and mother and four kids.
A family of six.
A good family.
A nice family.
Doing all the right things,
having a good time,
making all the right moves.
And the parents go away on a weekend
trip and get killed in an accident,
and the children,
of course, survive.
So now, according
to this theory,
these two people go to heaven
and they start helping
their four living children,
helping them
with everything they need.
Helping them with their science
projects, with their SAT scores.
Helping them get a good
school, get a nice job,
get a promotion and a
raise and someone to marry,
and they all grow up.
These four kids now grow up
and have children of their own.
And let's say that
all four of these
now-grown children also
die at the same time,
just for the sake of argument.
Let's say there's an explosion
at Thanksgiving dinner,
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 decedents
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?
Because people have been
dying for a long, long time.
There's been a lot of
dead mother-fuckers.
Did you know that?
Yes, you knew there's a
lot of dead mother-fuckers.
We've had 100 billion
people live on this earth.
That's what the experts say.
A hundred billion
people have lived here.
So let's say half of them
died and went to heaven.
That's 50 billion
people up there.
That's a pretty crowded place.
It must get pretty busy
and pretty hectic up there.
And God must get pretty pissed
off with all these favors.
"Yeah, yeah, I know.
Spelling test Tuesday.
Get the fuck out of here,
would you, please?
Just get the fuck out of here."
Well, even God can go on
sensory overload.
That's why he wanted
one day off a week.
Christians gave him Sunday.
Jews gave him Saturday.
Muslims gave him Friday.
God has a three-day weekend,
which is probably
just what he needs.
Now, just a couple of other
questions about this whole theory.
Suppose you die without
having any children.
Who do you help,
strangers?
It would be nice.
Suppose you're an adopted child.
Who helps you,
your biological mother?
She doesn't even know
where the fuck you live.
Suppose you kill your parents.
Would they help you?
I'll guarantee you Mr. and Mrs. Menendez
are not helping those two boys.
No. No.
Yeah, it's all bullshit folks,
and it's bad for you.
It's all bullshit.
That's what you have to remember as
you go through life in this country.
It's all bullshit,
and it's bad for you.
Now, speaking of parents
and peaking of bullshit -
two ideas which 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 30 to 40 years.
It's a form of bullshit that
really only can be called
child worship.
It's child worship.
It's this excessive
devotion to children.
I'm talking about today's
professional parents,
these obsessive diaper sniffers,
who are over-scheduling and
over-managing their children
and robbing them
of their childhoods.
Even the simple act of playing -
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?
You know, just sit there
with a fucking stick.
Do today's kids even
know what a stick is?
You know.
You sit in the yard
with a fucking stick
and you dig a fucking hole.
You know.
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 been
recalled because of lead paint.
Who would have thought that one day
the manufacturing of sticks
would be outsourced to China?
But you know something, a kid shouldn't
be wasting his time with a stick anyway.
If he's 4 years old
he should be home
studying for his
kindergarten entrance exams.
Do you know about that shit?
Oh, they have them now. Yeah. Yeah.
There are places that have
kindergarten entrance exams.
The poor little fuck.
The poor little fuck,
he can barely locate his dick,
you know, and already he's
being pressured to succeed.
Pressured to succeed for
the sake of the parents.
Isn't this really just a
sophisticated form of child abuse?
And speaking of that,
speaking of child abuse -
speaking of child abuse,
next stop grade school.
Grade school where
he won't be allowed
to play tag because it
encourages victimization.
And he won't be allowed to play
dodge ball because it's exclusionary,
and it promotes aggression.
Standing around is still okay.
Standing around is still
permitted, but it won't be for long
because sooner or later some kid
is gonna be standing around,
and his foot will fall asleep,
and his parents
will sue the school,
and it'll be goodbye
fucking standing around.
Now fortunately all is not lost.
All is not lost
because at least we know
that when he does get to play,
whatever games he
is allowed to play,
the child will never lose.
We know he'll never lose
because 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 those
all-important character building words,
"You lost, Bobby.
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 20's
when the 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."
Of course, Bobby's parents can't
understand why he can't hold a job.
In school he was always
on the honor roll.
Well, what they don't understand,
of course, is that in today's schools
everyone is on the honor roll.
Everyone is on the honor roll because
in order to be in the honor roll,
all you really need
to do is to maintain
a body temperature somewhere
roughly in the 90's.
But we shouldn't be worrying
about how he's doing in school
because you know come summertime
he'll be off to camp.
Yes, he'll be off to camp,
but not to swim and hike
and play softball. No, no, no.
Today's child will be
sent away to lose weight.
He'll be sent away to fat camp
or violin camp or ceramics camp
or computer camp or leadership
camp, whatever the fuck that is.
Leadership camp.
Isn't that where Hitler went?
Specialized,
structured summer camps.
Gotta keep the little
fucker busy, don't they?
Gotta keep the
little fucker busy.
Wouldn't want him to sneak in a
little unstructured time in the woods.
That wouldn't be any good.
God knows he might
start jacking off.
Now, all of this stupid bullshit
that children have been so crippled by
has grown out of something
called the self-esteem movement.
The self-esteem
movement began in 1970,
and I'm happy to say it has
been a complete failure
because studies
have repeatedly shown
that having high self-esteem
does not improve grades,
does not improve
career achievement.
It does not even lower
the use of alcohol.
And it most certainly does not reduce
the incidence of violence of any sort
because as it turns out,
extremely aggressive, violent people
think very highly of themselves.
Imagine that, sociopath's
have high self-esteem.
Who woulda thunk, huh?
I love when this kind
of thing happens.
I love when these
politically correct ideas
crash and burn and wind
up in the shithouse.
Here's another one
that bit the dust.
This practice of playing Mozart
during pregnancy
so the fetus can hear it.
It was supposed to
increase intelligence.
It didn't work. It didn't work.
All it did was
sell a lot of CDs
and piss off
a whole lot of fetuses.
The self-esteem movement
revolved around a single notion
- the idea, the single idea
that every child is special.
Boy, they said it over
and over and over,
as if to convince themselves.
Every child is special.
And I kept saying fuck you.
Every child is
clearly not special.
Did you ever look
at one of them?
Did you ever take a good close
look at one of these fucking kids?
They're goofy.
They're fucking goofy looking.
They're too small -
they're way too fucking small.
They're mal proportioned. Their
heads don't fit their bodies;
their arms are too
weird and everything.
They can't walk across the
room in a straight line.
And when they talk they talk
like they got a mouthful of shit.
They're incomplete.
Incomplete, unfinished work.
I never give credit
for incomplete work.
Now, PT Barnum
might think they're special,
but not me. I have standards.
But let's say it's true. Let's grab this.
I'm in a generous mood.
Let's grant this proposition.
Let's say it's true and somehow
all - every child is special.
What about every adult?
Isn't ever adult special too?
And if not, if not then
at what age do you go
from being special
to being not-so-special?
And if every adult is special
then it means we're all special,
and the whole idea loses
all of its fucking meaning.
Here's another platitude
they jam down our throat:
children are our future.
Children are not our future,
and I can prove it
with my usual flawless logic.
Children can't be our
future because
by the time the future arrives
they won't be children anymore,
so blow me.
Yes.
As you may have noticed I always like
to present a carefully reasoned argument.
Raising a child
is not difficult.
They try to make it into this
mysterious, difficult task.
Nothing to it.
Easiest thing in the world
to raise a kid
if you follow the steps.
First step,
you take the kid and you put it
out on the street corner,
and you leave him there.
You come back a week later.
If the kid is still there
you've got yourself
a stupid fucking kid.
Then you just proceed
from that point.
It's all bullshit, folks.
It's all bullshit,
and it's bad for you.
Now, you wouldn't know it
from some of the things
I've said over the years,
but I like people.
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 a
minute, minute and a half,
I've got to get the
fuck out of there.
And my reason for this, my reason is
for one that you may share possibly.
I have a very low tolerance
level for stupid bullshit.
That's all. Stupid bullshit.
You know.
And everyone wants to tell
you their stupid bullshit,
and a lot of them don't know when to
stop talking. You ever run into that guy?
Doesn't know when
to stop talking,
just continues running at the
mouth like verbal diarrhea.
Don't know when the
conversation is over.
Stupid, trivial shit you
don't care anything about,
things you're not even
remotely interested in.
"Did I tell you
about my mom and dad?
Well, my mom and dad went on vacation
down to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.
This is about six
years ago, I think.
It seemed like it was
six, about six years ago.
Six or seven - possibly seven.
Could be.
Somewhere in there, six seven.
More than six; less than seven.
Let's call it six and a half.
So my mom and dad went on
vacation to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky,
and my dad
found a big rock.
What he thought was a big rock
turns out it was a dinosaur turd,
a petrified
dinosaur turd, 27 pounder.
You know, now that
I think of it,
it might have been
eight years ago.
That would have been
close to Y2K, wouldn't it?
Remember Y2K?
Whatever happened?
Everybody's all worried about that.
Nothing ever happened.
Ha, ha, ha, big fuss.
Nothing every happened.
You know? God.
That was strange, you know."
"So let's say -
we'll say it's eight years.
It was either eight or five.
So my dad gave my
mom this big turd.
He says, 'Here, Mom.
This is a big dinosaur turd.
Put it in your purse
to take that home.'
My mom said, 'Dad, I don't
think this is a dinosaur turd.
This thing is still warm.
Whoever dropped this thing is
still walking around in here,
and we'd better get the
fuck out of this cave.'
Nine years ago.
Nine.
I know it was nine because my wife
was pregnant with our first boy,
Mach Moody Benel Sayid
Ben Salem,
and he's ten now.
Or is he? He's 11.
Maybe he's 11.
He's either 11 or 5."
And while all of this is going on
you're searching through your mind
for something graceful and
diplomatic you can say
to bring the conversation
to a close,
and all I can ever come up with
is shut the fuck up.
Shut the fuck up.
Shut the fuck up.
Shut the fuck up.
But you can't say that.
Good manners don't permit it.
You have to find another way,
and I go to body language.
I try to use my body language to
show that the conversation is over.
I find myself leaning
at a 45-degree angle
trying to indicate the direction
that I'd like to go
if this person
would just shut the fuck up.
And then I might even
give him a verbal cue.
"Surgery. Surgery.
I'm late for surgery.
I'm having my ears sewn shut."
You know.
Yeah.
Same people on the phone.
Same people on the phone -
don't know when to hang up.
Don't know when the
conversation is over.
Dumb, trivial shit.
Dumb questions.
"So what are you guys gonna
do five summers from now?
We haven't made any plans.
Marge wants to go to the beach.
The kids kind of
like it at the lake,
and I want to go
to the mountains.
Grandma wants to visit her
sister in Frog Balls, Arkansas.
How about you, have
you made any plans?
It's never too
early to make plans.
We're going to Norway in 2025.
Did you know up until the 1950's,
Norway's economy was
based largely on fishing,
but now, thanks to improved
drilling techniques
and the expansion
of the global economy."
Once again, searching through your
mind for something gentle you can say.
"Blow it out your ass,"
comes to mind.
Or shut your fucking pie-hole.
Or if your friend prefers cake,
shut your fucking cake-hole.
But you can't say these things,
and you can't use body language
on the phone.
Well, you could always
amuse yourself, you know.
Or if it's your mother you
show your mother respect;
you put her on speakerphone.
But that doesn't move
the conversation along.
You have to find another trick.
And I go to tone of voice.
Did you ever use your tone of voice to
try to talk them into a soft landing?
You try to coax the
person toward the end.
"Right. Good.
Okay. Good.
All right then.
Good. Great. Okay.
Good. Okay.
All right.
"Oh, fuck, there he goes again.
That cocksucker.
"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."
"Listen, Reverend."
"Reverend, I hate to be rude,
but I just took a three
and a half hour shit,
and I'm bleeding
from the asshole.
Well, I don't have
any mercurochrome.
Yes. Yeah, I'll put a Snoopy
band-aid on it. Thank you.
You do that for me. Yes,
say a prayer for my asshole.
Thank you very much."
You have to resort
to these tactics
because many people do not
understand what a phone call should be
or what a phone call is.
Ideally, a phone call is
the brief exchange of a few
vital pieces of information.
This is a phone call.
"Hey, Steve, what time's the
circle jerk start tonight?
Ten o'clock. Okay. Listen, I'm
going to be a little bit late.
You'll have to start without me.
Oh, don't worry. I'll catch up.
I'm eating a whole bunch of
oysters and watching a horny movie.
It's called
Tarzan Fucks a Zebra.
Russell Crowe.
Well, it's kind of a fantasy. Right now
Renee Zellweger is blowing a unicorn."
That's a phone call.
It should not be a
two and a half hour harangue
of your third cousin describing
her mailman's liposuction.
God, people are fucking boring.
People are just fucking boring.
You know what would be
great for a guy like me?
Just to be in a coma.
Huh?
Wouldn't that be great?
Nothing to do all day.
You just crap out and breathe
through a fucking tube.
They feed you through a tube.
There's nothing to do.
Whoa, you talk about being a
couch potato, that's it man.
No phone calls coming in.
Nobody dropping by unexpectedly.
And if they do drop by you're
completely unaware of it
because you're in
a fucking coma,
and you're practically
clinically dead.
And you don't have to
listen to their stupid shit.
Their stupid shit like about
their new ride-around lawnmower
with the two-tone horn and the GPS
in case they get lost on the lawn.
And their boss and their job
and their car and their kids.
Jesus fucking Christ,
their kids.
Folks, folks, nothing worse.
Nothing worse
than to be stuck somewhere
with some married asshole
and have to listen to him
tell you about his fucking kids.
Let me tell you
something, folks.
Nobody cares about
your children, okay?
No. We don't care.
We don't care.
Nobody cares about your children.
I speak for everyone.
I've been appointed by the rest
of the group to inform you
we don't care
about your children.
That's why they're your children
so you can care about them,
and we don't have to bother.
But they tell you anyway.
"Todd is in the
seventh grade now.
He's in the cheese club.
Jaselle is 5 and already
she's had nine periods.
Johan is 11,
and he pretty much sits
around the house hallucinating all the time."
Then they want to
show you the pictures.
Here's another ordeal,
the pictures of these
little gargoyles
that they have
loosed from their loins.
A lot of these
professional mommies,
boy, they think there's nothing
better than having a baby.
Oh, they think it's the
biggest thing in the world
like it's a big event
having a baby.
I call it pumping out a unit.
That's all they're doing.
That's all they're doing.
Pumping out a fucking unit.
Ba-boom.
Ba-boom.
Like some of them like
assembly lines like a factory.
Ba-ba-boom.
Every fucking year,
ba-ba-boom.
"Hey, Jeff, want a kid?"
Ba-ba-boom.
"How about twins?"
Ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-boom.
Polluting the earth.
Polluting the earth
with these creatures
who have no future.
They have no future.
Have you pictured what this planet
is going to be like in 40 to 50 years?
It's going to be
a big smoking ball of shit,
a big, smoking, flaming,
stinking ball of gaseous shit.
That's what's gonna happen.
That's what's gonna happen.
It's irresponsible to
have more than one child.
Have one.
Have one child, replacement
value for yourself, that's all.
Don't even replace your husband.
Don't replace your husband.
No.
He's done enough
fucking damage as it is.
But they want to show
you the pictures.
Sometimes they warn you,
you know. That's good.
They say, "Hey, you want to
see some pictures of my kid?"
No,
just describe them to me.
But they show you, and there are two
ways you can handle it, I have found.
Two ways to handle the pictures.
The first is the easy way.
You just kind of take
it all in stride,
you matter-of-factly go
along with the game.
"Oh, uh-huh, boy.
Girl. Yeah.
Older boy.
Older girl. Good. Four.
Listen, I have to go wash my
crotch. I'll see you later."
Then you get the
fuck out of there.
Or you can do what I do -
you can do what I do, be a
little honest about what you see.
Take a chance.
Tell the truth.
"Look at the fucking
head on that kid."
"Geez, where did he
get a fucking head like that?
That thing is huge.
Have you put him on YouTube yet?
Boy, you get a lot of hits
with a head like that.
Or put him on eBay. You might
make a little money, you know.
I'm sure some European circus would
snap his ass up in a fucking minute, boy.
Goddamn that thing is unusual.
Listen, maybe he'll grow into it.
You never know with kids, huh.
Hey, let me ask you
a practical question.
Where do you find hats
for a kid like that?"
Tell the truth.
Don't be bullshitting people.
Don't be bullshitting. There's
enough bullshit as it is, folks.
There's plenty of bullshit.
Then they want to show you the
pictures of the little girl
whose second teeth
are coming in,
and they think it's cute.
It's not.
It's fucking horrifying.
Did you ever look at the teeth
coming in on some of these kids?
Did you ever take a good, close
look at actually in the mouth?
Take a look and see different -
damn, sometimes they got
two, three rows of fucking
teeth coming in there.
All odd angles.
There's one under the tongue.
That's unusual. Look at that.
A sublingual tooth.
What do you know.
Once again, tell the truth.
"You better start saving
your money right now, pal.
It's gonna cost you a
fucking fortune to fix that.
You're gonna need an international
team of orthodontists around the clock
just to make a dent.
You might want to call FEMA.
That looks like a real
fucking problem to me.
Look at that.
You have the number
to the National Guard?
Give them a ring.
That's good.
Listen, why don't you
just have them all pulled
and let her start
over again, you know?
Or take a picture of her
with her mouth closed.
That would save you a lot of
heartache in the long run.
Listen, you're not Catholic
by any chance, are you?
Well, the reason I ask is
you might want to take her to Lewards
and pray for a miracle over there."
Tell the truth.
Don't be bullshitting people.
Like I say, there's
enough bullshit as it is.
There's enough
bullshit as it is.
In fact, there's just
enough, did you know that?
There's just enough bullshit to
hold things together in this country.
Bullshit is the glue that
binds us as a nation.
Where would we be without
our safe, familiar,
American bullshit.
Land of the free.
Home of the brave.
The American dream.
All men are equal.
Justice is blind.
The press is free.
Your vote counts.
Business is honest.
The good guys win.
The police are on your side.
God is watching you.
Your standard of living
will never decline.
And everything is
gonna be just fine.
The official national
bullshit story.
I call it the
American okie-doke.
Every one, every one of those items is
provably untrue at one level or another,
but we believe them
because they're pounded into our
heads from the time we're children.
That's what they do
with that kind of thing,
pound it into the heads of kids
because they know that
children are much too young
to be able to
muster an intellectual defense
against a sophisticated
idea like that.
And they know that
up to a certain age
children believe everything
their parents tell them,
and as a result, they never
learn to question things.
Nobody questions things
in this country anymore.
Nobody questions anything.
Everybody is too fat and happy.
Everybody has got a cell phone that'll
make pancakes and rub their balls now.
Way too fucking prosperous
for our own good,
way too fucking prosperous.
Americans have been bought off
in silence by toys and gizmos,
and no one learns
to question things.
Do you remember - Okay.
Now, okay.
You remember Barbara Bush?
I call her the silver douche bag.
You remember her?
Barbara Bush. She is the mother
of Governor George Bush.
I call him Governor Bush because
that's the only elected office
he ever held legally
in our country, okay.
George Bush, Governor Bush.
I don't care where
they hang his portrait.
I don't care how big his library is.
He'll always be Governor Bush.
I don't even capitalize his
name when I type it anymore.
So she's the mother
of Governor George Bush.
She's also the wife of
his father, George H. W. Bush
who did become president in the
normal, legal, traditional manner.
And when he did, she came along
for the ride as first lady,
and that's been the
tradition up 'til now.
A man has been elected and
the woman has come along for
the ride as the first lady.
And usually, as in
American life in general,
the woman is condescended to,
patronized,
given something to
do to keep her busy.
A lot of times they give her a charity
or a cause, something she can champion.
Betty Ford was told to drink.
Remember that?
Yeah, that was
Betty Ford's assignment.
"Betty, you get drunk and get totally falling
down, fucked-up, shit-faced drunk, okay?
You just get fucked up drunk,
and we'll hose you down, baby.
We'll hose you down.
We'll put you in a
facility, you'll get sober,
and then we'll put your
name on the facility.
Liza Minnelli can get sober, and
everything is going to be okay."
That was her assignment.
Barbara Bush's assignment was
getting children to read.
Remember that?
Getting children to read.
They figured she had
so much success with George
that she would be a natural
to get children to read,
which misses the
point completely.
Not important to get
children to read.
Children who want to
read are gonna read.
Kids who want to learn to
read are gonna learn to read.
Much more important to teach
children to question what they read.
Children should be taught to
question everything.
To question everything they
read, everything they hear.
Children should be taught
to question authority.
Parents never teach their children
to question authority because
parents are authority
figures themselves,
and they don't want to undermine their
own bullshit inside the household.
So they stroke the kid
and the kid strokes them,
and they all stroke each other,
all grow up all fucked up,
and they come to
shows like this.
Kids have to be warned that there's
bullshit coming down the road.
That's the biggest thing
you can do for a kid.
Tell them what life in
this country is about.
It's about a whole lot of bullshit
that needs to be detected and avoided.
That's the best thing you can do.
No one told me.
No one told me a
thing like that.
I was never warned
about any of this.
I had to find all of
it out for myself.
And there are still,
as with you probably,
a lot of things that you're expected
to believe and accept in America
that I personally
have a problem with,
and I question a
lot of these things.
I'll give you an example.
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 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.
Now, here's another slogan -
here's another slogan
you run into all the time.
"God bless America."
Once again, respectfully, I say to
myself, "What the fuck does that mean?"
God bless America.
Is that a request?
Is that a demand?
Is that a suggestion?
Politicians say it
at the end of every speech
as if it were some sort of verbal
tick that they can't get rid of.
"God bless you and
God bless America.
God bless you and
God bless America."
I guess they figure
if they leave it out
someone is gonna think
they're bad Americans.
Let me tell you a little
secret about God, folks.
God doesn't give a
flying fuck about America, okay.
He doesn't care.
He never cared
about this country.
He never has. He never will.
He doesn't care
about this country
any more than
he cares about Mongolia,
Transylvania, Pittsburgh,
the Suez Canal
or the North Pole.
He simply doesn't care, okay.
He doesn't care.
Listen, good.
There are 200 countries
in the world now.
Do these people honestly think that
God is sitting around
picking out his favorites?
Why would he do that? Why would
God have a favorite country?
And why would it be America
out of all the countries?
Because we have the most money?
Because he likes
our National Anthem?
Maybe it's because he heard we have 18
delicious flavors of classic Rice-A-Roni.
It's delusional thinking.
It's delusional thinking,
and Americans are not alone
with these sort of delusions.
Military cemeteries around
the world are packed
with brainwashed, dead soldiers
who were convinced
God was on their side.
America prays for God
to destroy our enemies.
Our enemies pray for
God to destroy us.
Somebody is gonna
be disappointed.
Somebody is wasting
their fucking time.
Could it be everyone?
Now,
if people want to say God bless America
that's their business.
I don't care. But here's what
I don't understand.
If they say God bless America,
presumably they believe in God,
and if they do, they must have
heard God loved everyone.
That's what he said.
He loved everyone,
and he loved them equally.
So why would these people ask God
to do something that went
against his own teachings?
You know what these God bless
America people ought to do?
They ought to check with that
Jesus fellow they're so crazy about.
They're always talking
about what would Jesus do,
what would Jesus do.
They don't want to
know so they can do it.
They just want to know so they
could tell other people to do it.
Well, I'll tell you what
Jesus would have done.
I'll tell you what
Jesus would have done.
He would have got up on the top of
the Empire State Building and said,
"God bless everyone around the world,
forever and ever, until the end of time."
That's what Jesus
would have done,
and that's what these
people should do,
or else they should admit that
God bless America is really just
some sort of an empty slogan
with no real meaning
except for something vague
like good luck.
Good luck, America.
You're on your own.
Which is a little bit
closer to the truth.
Here's a civic custom
that I don't understand.
Maybe you can help me.
Taking off your hat
when a flag passes by
or when some jack-off at the ballpark
starts singing the National Anthem.
They tell you to
take off the hat.
What the fuck does a hat have
to do with being patriotic?
What possible relationship
exists between the uncovered head
and a feeling that
ought to live in your heart?
Suppose you have a red,
white and blue hat.
Suppose you have a hat
made out of a flag.
Why would you take it
off to honor the flag?
Wouldn't you leave it on
and point it toward the flag?
And what's so bad about hats
that you have to take them off?
Why not take off your pants
or your shoes? They tell you
that at the airport.
They say take off your shoes.
They tell you it's
national security,
so taking off your shoes
could be patriotic too.
I started to question all of this
stupid hat shit when I was a kid.
When I was a kid
I was a Catholic,
at least until I reached
the age of reason, okay.
So I was a Catholic for about two, two
and a half years, something like that.
And during that time one of
the things they told us was
that if a boy or a man
went into a church,
he had to remove his hat in order
to honor the presence of God.
But they had already told
me that God was everywhere.
So I used to wonder,
well, if God is everywhere,
why would you even own a hat?
Why not show your respect,
don't even buy a fucking hat.
And just to confuse things further they
told the women exactly the opposite.
Catholic women and girls had to cover
their heads when they went into church.
Same as in certain temples.
Jewish men have to cover
their heads in those temples.
In those same temples Jewish women
not allowed to cover their heads.
So try to figure this shit out.
Catholic men and
Jewish women, no hats.
Catholic women and
Jewish men, hats.
Somebody's got the whole thing totally
fucking backward, don't you think?
And what is this religious
fascination with headgear?
Every religion has got a
different fucking hat.
Did you ever notice that?
The Hindus have a turban.
The Sikhs have a
tall, white turban.
Jews have yarmulke.
The Muslims have a kufi.
The Bishop has a pointy hat on one
day and a round hat on another day.
Cardinal has a red hat, Pope has a white.
Everybody's got a fucking hat.
One group takes them off;
the other group puts them on.
Personally, I would never want
to be a member of any group
where you either have to wear
a hat or you can't wear a hat.
I think -
I think all religions should
have one rule and one rule only:
hats optional.
That's all you need to run
a really good religion.
Here's another one of
these civic customs.
Swearing on the Bible.
Do you understand that shit?
They tell you to raise your right hand
and place your left hand on the Bible.
Does this stuff really
matter which hand?
Does God really give a fuck
about details like this?
Suppose you put your right hand on
the Bible and you raise your left hand,
would that count?
Or would God say,
"Sorry. Wrong hand. Try again."
And why does one hand
have to be raised?
What is the magic
in this gesture?
This seems like some sort of a
primitive, voodoo, mojo shtick.
Why not put your
left hand on the Bible
and let your right hand
hang down by your side?
It's more natural.
Or put it in your pocket.
Remember what your
mother used to say?
Don't put your hands
in your pockets.
Does she know something
that we don't know?
Is this hand shit
really important?
Well, let's get
back to the Bible,
America's favorite
national theatrical prop.
Suppose the Bible they hand you
to swear on is upside down
or backward or both,
and you swear to tell the truth
an upside down, backward Bible.
Would that count?
Suppose the Bible they hand you is an
old Bible and half the pages are missing.
Suppose all 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,
backward Chinese Braille Bible
with half the pages missing?
At what point does all of this
stuff just break down
and become just a lot of stupid
shit that somebody made up?
They fucking made it up, folks.
It's make-believe.
It's make-believe.
Now, all right. Okay.
Let's leave
the Bible aside.
We'll get back to the science
fiction reading later.
The more important
question is
what is the big deal about
swearing to God in the first place?
Why does swearing to God mean
you're going to tell the truth?
It wouldn't affect me.
If they said,
"You swear to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?"
I'd say yeah.
I'll tell you about as much truth as
the people who wrote that fucking Bible.
How do you like that, huh? Huh?
Swearing on the Bible
doesn't mean anything.
It's kid - swearing
to God is kid stuff.
Did you ever - remember
when you were a kid,
if you told another kid
something he didn't quite believe
he'd say,
"You swear to God?"
I would always say,
"Yeah, I swear to God,"
even if I was lying.
Why not?
What's gonna happen if I lie?
Nothing.
Nothing happens if you lie
unless you get caught, and
that's a whole different story.
Sometimes that kid would think he
was being slick with me and he'd say,
"You swear on
your mother's grave?"
I'd say, "Yeah, why not?"
First of all, my mother was alive.
She didn't have a grave.
Second of all,
even if she was dead,
what's she gonna do, rise from
the grave and come and haunt me?
Come and haunt me all because
I told a lie to an 8-year-old?
Get fucking real, will you?
Sometimes I would say,
"I swear on my mother's tits."
Kids are impressed
with things like that.
I mean, I don't care about
my mother's tits either.
I didn't care if they fell off.
Fuck her.
Not my problem.
They're your tits, ma.
You keep an eye on them.
Swearing to God
doesn't mean anything.
Swearing on the Bible
doesn't mean anything.
You know why?
Because Bible or no
Bible, God or no God,
if it suits their purposes,
people are gonna lie in court.
The police do it all
the time, all the time.
Yes, they do.
It's part of their
job to protect, to serve
and to commit perjury whenever
it supports the state's case.
Swearing on the Bible
is just one more way
of controlling people
and keeping them in line,
and it's one more thing that
holds us back as a species.
Here's one more item for you,
the last in our civics book:
rights.
Boy, everyone in this country
is always running around,
yammering about
their fucking rights.
I have a right. You have no right.
We have a right.
They don't a have right.
Folks,
I hate to spoil your fun but
there's no such thing
as rights, okay.
They're imaginary.
We made them up,
like the Boogie Man,
the Three Little Pigs, Pinocchio,
Mother Goose, shit like that.
Rights are an idea.
They're just imaginary.
They're a cute idea.
Cute but that's all.
Cute and fictional.
But if you think you do have
rights let me ask you this,
where do they come from?
People say, "Well, they come from
God. They're God-given rights."
Oh, fuck, here we go again.
Here we go again.
The God excuse.
The last refuge of a man with
no answers and no argument,
"They came from God."
Anything we can't describe
must have come from God.
Personally, folks, I believe
that if your rights came from God
he would have given you the
right to some food everyday,
and he would have given you the
right to a roof over your head.
God would have been
looking out for you.
God would have been looking
out for you, you know that?
He wouldn't have been worrying
about making sure you have a gun
so you can get drunk on Sunday night
and kill your girlfriend's parents.
But let's say it's true. Let's
say God gave us these rights.
Why would he give us a
certain number of rights?
The Bill of Rights in this
country has ten stipulations, okay.
Ten rights.
And apparently God was doing
sloppy work that week because
we've had to amend the Bill of
Rights an additional 17 times,
so God forgot a couple
of things like slavery.
Just fucking slipped his mind.
But let's say God
gave us the original ten.
He gave the British 13.
The British Bill of Rights
has 13 stipulations.
The Germans have 29.
The Belgians have 25.
The Swedish have only 6.
And some people in the world
have no rights at all.
What kind of a fucking, goddamn,
God-giving deal is that?
No rights at all?
Why would God give different
people in different countries
different numbers
of different rights?
Boredom?
Amusement?
Bad arithmetic?
Do we find out at long
last after all this time
that God is weak in math skills?
Doesn't sound like
divine planning to me.
Sounds more like human planning.
Sounds more like one group
trying to control another group.
In other words, business
as usual in America.
Now, if you think you do have
rights, one last assignment for you.
Next time you're at he
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.
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 interment 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.
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 are you going to 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 you have
no right to your opinion."
Then shoot the
fuck and walk away.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'd like to begin -
I'd like to -
Thank you. Thank you.
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.
There's another jack-off
I can do without.
I'm tired of being told who
to admire in this country.
Aren't you sick of being told
who your heroes ought to be?
Being told who you ought
to be looking up to.
I'll choose my own heroes,
thank you very much.
And fuck Dr. Phil too.
Dr. Phil said
I should express my emotions,
so that's what I'm doing.
Now, since the last time I
rolled through these parts -
and I do roll through
with some frequency.
I'm a little bit like herpes.
I keep coming back.
But since the last time I might
have seen some of you folks
I have had my 70th birthday.
So I'm at -
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, I'm now 70 years old,
and I like 70.
Not as much as I liked 69.
Well, 69 was always
my favorite number.
Now I figure I'm 69
with one finger up my ass.
But now that I'm an old fuck
- and that's what I
consider myself to be -
an old fuck.
Old fuck is a very special term.
It's not like old man.
Old man is different.
Old man isn't really a time in
your life or a period of years.
It's an attitude.
Old man is a point of view.
It's a way of looking at things.
Some guys are old men when
they're in their 20's.
You've met guys like that.
They're just wired like old men.
Not me.
Not an old man
and not an old fart
because an old fart is kind of -
What I am is an old fuck.
It's kind of like a fat fuck,
you know what I mean?
Fat fuck, tall fuck,
skinny fuck, short fuck,
old fuck.
Who's the old fuck?
That's Georgie.
Georgie's the old fuck.
In this respect, fuck is actually
a synonym for the word fellow.
But now that I'm an old fuck
I'm beginning to notice
there's some advantages to
putting on a few extra years.
The first one is
you never have to carry
anything heavy ever again.
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.
You say, "Yeah, could
you help me with this?"
Say, "Yeah.
Hey, how far you going?"
"Indianapolis."
He wants to help?
Fuck him. Put him to work.
Take advantage of people.
Another nice thing about
getting old is
you can leave any social event
early just by saying you're tired.
Works great
with family members.
Just turn to the person
next to you and say,
"Geez, I'm getting tired,
you know."
Oh, are you tired?
Come on.
Grandpa's tired.
Grandpa's going to bed.
Someone else says,
"But it's 7:30 in the morning."
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."
I forgot.
You can even make believe you
have Alzheimer's disease.
Ah, it's a lot of fun.
You look around the dining
room table and you say,
"Who are you people,
and where is my horse?"
Then you stare at your
eldest son and say,
"Agnes, I haven't seen you
since first communion."
Fucks them up.
Fucks them up.
They don't know how to handle it.
It takes them a week
to get over that shit.
And they start listening to you
a lot more carefully from then on.
So don't be afraid to get old.
It's a great time of life.
You get to take
advantage of people,
and you're not
responsible for anything.
You can even
shit in your pants.
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.
Perhaps that's not the figure
of speech I wanted right there.
So you know what
I've been doing?
Going through my address book
and crossing out the dead people.
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 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 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.
Out you fucking go.
You got to have
standards, you know.
Now, these days a lot of people don't
keep analog address books anymore.
They don't want to be writing
that stuff out longhand.
They're in the computer age.
And they have an application in
the computer called Outlook
or Contacts or Address Book
or something like that.
So they keep all the
information in the computer,
and they sync it up with their
phone every day or every other day.
So now instead of
scratching out a name
you get to delete the fuck.
And deleting someone is an even
more powerful feeling
than simply
scratching out a name.
You know how to delete someone.
You select a name,
highlight the person
and then poof,
straight into the trash.
Now, if it's a really close
friend of yours
you might not want to empty
the trash for about six weeks.
Or, if it's a
little too harsh for you,
a little too harsh to
delete an old friend,
you can always
create a new folder,
a special folder
for dead people.
You keep it on your desktop.
It's kind of a
digital purgatory.
And the nice thing
is every now and then
you can open it up,
and you can look inside.
And you can see the
people in purgatory.
You can move them all around,
you know. Move them around.
Put them in little groups.
Two people who didn't get along in life,
put them in the corner;
let them work it out.
Let them work out in purgatory.
Or start a fight.
Have a big fight in purgatory.
That's a lot of fun.
Nobody's gonna get hurt.
They're a fucking dead anyway.
Then you put them in a big
formation and have a parade -
the purgatory parade
of dead people.
Ah, there's a lot of fun you
can have with a computer,
so enjoy your digital selves.
Now, speaking of dead people,
there things we say
when someone dies -
most of us say,
a lot of us do -
things we say
that no one ever questions.
They just kind of go unexamined.
I'll give you a
couple of examples.
After someone dies the following
conversation is bound to take place
probably more than once.
Two guys meet on the street.
"Hey, did you hear?
Phil Davis died."
"Phil Davis?
I just saw him yesterday."
Yeah?
Didn't help.
He died anyway.
Apparently the simple act of your
seeing him did not slow his cancer down.
In fact, it may have
made it more aggressive.
You know, you could be
responsible for Phil's death.
How do you live with yourself?
Here's another thing
they say after a death.
This is usually said to
the surviving spouse.
"Listen, if there's anything
I can do, anything at all,
please don't hesitate to ask."
What are you going to
do, a resurrection?
This ain't the fucking
New Testament, you know.
You know what you tell a guy
like that who wants to help?
Well fine, why don't you
come over this weekend.
You can paint the garage.
Bring your plunger.
The upstairs toilet overflowed
and there's shit
all over the floor up there.
Do you drive a tractor?
Good. That'll come in handy.
The north 40 needs
a lot of attention.
Bring your chainsaw
and your pickaxe.
We're going to put
your ass to work.
He wants to help?
Fuck him. Call his bluff.
Call his bluff.
"Don't hesitate to ask."
The nerve of these pricks.
Here's another thing we say
to the surviving spouse.
"I'm keeping him
in my thoughts."
Where?
Where exactly in your
thoughts does he fit?
In between my ass hurt in this
chair and let's fuck the waitress?
What are your priorities?
We use a lot of euphemisms when
we talk about death, you know.
People say things like,
"You know, I lost my father."
Ah, he'll turn up.
You've got to stay optimistic
with people like that.
Give them reason to hope.
Have you checked the
dumpster out back?
He used to like to
take a nap in there.
Keep it upbeat.
Now, there's something else
that is said after a death,
but this one involves belief,
which is where I begin to have
big problems.
This one happens after the funeral,
after the burial, back at the house.
Back at the house
where the family
and friends and the loved ones
of the deceased are
having some food and drink,
and they're enjoying
some warm reminiscences
of the person who passed away,
sooner or later, someone is
bound to say the following,
especially after a few drinks.
"You know, I think he's up
there now smiling down at us,
and I think he's pleased."
Now, first of all,
there is no "up there"
no, no
for people to be
smiling down from.
It's poetic. It's quaint.
And I guess for superstitious
people it provides a little comfort,
but it doesn't exist.
But if it did, if it did,
and if someone did somehow survive
death in the non-physical form,
I personally think he'd be far too
busy with other celestial activities
than to be
standing around paradise
smiling down
on live people.
What kind of fucking
eternity is that?
And why is no one ever says,
"I think he's down there now,
smiling up at us."
Apparently it never occurs to people
that their loved ones might be in hell.
Your parents could
be in hell right now.
Your parents -
your father for sure.
Oh, shit.
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.
People just refuse
to be realistic.
They don't like to be realistic.
People would rather
stroke themselves, you know.
Oh, they like to stroke
themselves, don't they?
Stroke themselves.
They stroke each other.
They get stroked.
They stroke the boss.
The boss strokes them.
Everybody strokes everybody.
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 -
yeah. Yeah.
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.
It's all bullshit folks.
It's all bullshit,
and it's bad for you.
Now, speaking of dead
people in heaven,
there are some people
who not only believe
that their dead parents
in heaven can see them
- okay,
okay -
they honestly believe that their
dead parents in heaven can help them.
You've heard these
people, I'm sure.
They honestly somehow believe
that their dead parents in heaven
can intercede with God on their
behalf to gain favors for the living.
I come from a Catholic home.
I heard this shit.
They sit there in the chair
with the fucking rosary,
and they look at you
like this, you know.
And they said "Oh, my dad.
My dad was looking out for me.
He was looking out.
I don't know how he got me out
of that jam, but he got me out.
Oh, my mom - my mom
was in surgery with me.
She was in - I could feel
her presence in there."
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fine.
Like the people who die
have nothing better to do
than run the heavenly branch
of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Now,
if people want to believe
this kind of stuff
it's fine with me.
Let them believe it.
I don't want to disabuse
anyone of their beliefs.
But I have a
question about this,
a question that involves logic.
Let's suppose it's true.
Let's allow the
proposition that somehow
dead parents in heaven can
help their living children.
Fine.
So we've got a family living on earth,
a father and mother and four kids.
A family of six.
A good family.
A nice family.
Doing all the right things,
having a good time,
making all the right moves.
And the parents go away on a weekend
trip and get killed in an accident,
and the children,
of course, survive.
So now, according
to this theory,
these two people go to heaven
and they start helping
their four living children,
helping them
with everything they need.
Helping them with their science
projects, with their SAT scores.
Helping them get a good
school, get a nice job,
get a promotion and a
raise and someone to marry,
and they all grow up.
These four kids now grow up
and have children of their own.
And let's say that
all four of these
now-grown children also
die at the same time,
just for the sake of argument.
Let's say there's an explosion
at Thanksgiving dinner,
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 decedents
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?
Because people have been
dying for a long, long time.
There's been a lot of
dead mother-fuckers.
Did you know that?
Yes, you knew there's a
lot of dead mother-fuckers.
We've had 100 billion
people live on this earth.
That's what the experts say.
A hundred billion
people have lived here.
So let's say half of them
died and went to heaven.
That's 50 billion
people up there.
That's a pretty crowded place.
It must get pretty busy
and pretty hectic up there.
And God must get pretty pissed
off with all these favors.
"Yeah, yeah, I know.
Spelling test Tuesday.
Get the fuck out of here,
would you, please?
Just get the fuck out of here."
Well, even God can go on
sensory overload.
That's why he wanted
one day off a week.
Christians gave him Sunday.
Jews gave him Saturday.
Muslims gave him Friday.
God has a three-day weekend,
which is probably
just what he needs.
Now, just a couple of other
questions about this whole theory.
Suppose you die without
having any children.
Who do you help,
strangers?
It would be nice.
Suppose you're an adopted child.
Who helps you,
your biological mother?
She doesn't even know
where the fuck you live.
Suppose you kill your parents.
Would they help you?
I'll guarantee you Mr. and Mrs. Menendez
are not helping those two boys.
No. No.
Yeah, it's all bullshit folks,
and it's bad for you.
It's all bullshit.
That's what you have to remember as
you go through life in this country.
It's all bullshit,
and it's bad for you.
Now, speaking of parents
and peaking of bullshit -
two ideas which 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 30 to 40 years.
It's a form of bullshit that
really only can be called
child worship.
It's child worship.
It's this excessive
devotion to children.
I'm talking about today's
professional parents,
these obsessive diaper sniffers,
who are over-scheduling and
over-managing their children
and robbing them
of their childhoods.
Even the simple act of playing -
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?
You know, just sit there
with a fucking stick.
Do today's kids even
know what a stick is?
You know.
You sit in the yard
with a fucking stick
and you dig a fucking hole.
You know.
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 been
recalled because of lead paint.
Who would have thought that one day
the manufacturing of sticks
would be outsourced to China?
But you know something, a kid shouldn't
be wasting his time with a stick anyway.
If he's 4 years old
he should be home
studying for his
kindergarten entrance exams.
Do you know about that shit?
Oh, they have them now. Yeah. Yeah.
There are places that have
kindergarten entrance exams.
The poor little fuck.
The poor little fuck,
he can barely locate his dick,
you know, and already he's
being pressured to succeed.
Pressured to succeed for
the sake of the parents.
Isn't this really just a
sophisticated form of child abuse?
And speaking of that,
speaking of child abuse -
speaking of child abuse,
next stop grade school.
Grade school where
he won't be allowed
to play tag because it
encourages victimization.
And he won't be allowed to play
dodge ball because it's exclusionary,
and it promotes aggression.
Standing around is still okay.
Standing around is still
permitted, but it won't be for long
because sooner or later some kid
is gonna be standing around,
and his foot will fall asleep,
and his parents
will sue the school,
and it'll be goodbye
fucking standing around.
Now fortunately all is not lost.
All is not lost
because at least we know
that when he does get to play,
whatever games he
is allowed to play,
the child will never lose.
We know he'll never lose
because 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 those
all-important character building words,
"You lost, Bobby.
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 20's
when the 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."
Of course, Bobby's parents can't
understand why he can't hold a job.
In school he was always
on the honor roll.
Well, what they don't understand,
of course, is that in today's schools
everyone is on the honor roll.
Everyone is on the honor roll because
in order to be in the honor roll,
all you really need
to do is to maintain
a body temperature somewhere
roughly in the 90's.
But we shouldn't be worrying
about how he's doing in school
because you know come summertime
he'll be off to camp.
Yes, he'll be off to camp,
but not to swim and hike
and play softball. No, no, no.
Today's child will be
sent away to lose weight.
He'll be sent away to fat camp
or violin camp or ceramics camp
or computer camp or leadership
camp, whatever the fuck that is.
Leadership camp.
Isn't that where Hitler went?
Specialized,
structured summer camps.
Gotta keep the little
fucker busy, don't they?
Gotta keep the
little fucker busy.
Wouldn't want him to sneak in a
little unstructured time in the woods.
That wouldn't be any good.
God knows he might
start jacking off.
Now, all of this stupid bullshit
that children have been so crippled by
has grown out of something
called the self-esteem movement.
The self-esteem
movement began in 1970,
and I'm happy to say it has
been a complete failure
because studies
have repeatedly shown
that having high self-esteem
does not improve grades,
does not improve
career achievement.
It does not even lower
the use of alcohol.
And it most certainly does not reduce
the incidence of violence of any sort
because as it turns out,
extremely aggressive, violent people
think very highly of themselves.
Imagine that, sociopath's
have high self-esteem.
Who woulda thunk, huh?
I love when this kind
of thing happens.
I love when these
politically correct ideas
crash and burn and wind
up in the shithouse.
Here's another one
that bit the dust.
This practice of playing Mozart
during pregnancy
so the fetus can hear it.
It was supposed to
increase intelligence.
It didn't work. It didn't work.
All it did was
sell a lot of CDs
and piss off
a whole lot of fetuses.
The self-esteem movement
revolved around a single notion
- the idea, the single idea
that every child is special.
Boy, they said it over
and over and over,
as if to convince themselves.
Every child is special.
And I kept saying fuck you.
Every child is
clearly not special.
Did you ever look
at one of them?
Did you ever take a good close
look at one of these fucking kids?
They're goofy.
They're fucking goofy looking.
They're too small -
they're way too fucking small.
They're mal proportioned. Their
heads don't fit their bodies;
their arms are too
weird and everything.
They can't walk across the
room in a straight line.
And when they talk they talk
like they got a mouthful of shit.
They're incomplete.
Incomplete, unfinished work.
I never give credit
for incomplete work.
Now, PT Barnum
might think they're special,
but not me. I have standards.
But let's say it's true. Let's grab this.
I'm in a generous mood.
Let's grant this proposition.
Let's say it's true and somehow
all - every child is special.
What about every adult?
Isn't ever adult special too?
And if not, if not then
at what age do you go
from being special
to being not-so-special?
And if every adult is special
then it means we're all special,
and the whole idea loses
all of its fucking meaning.
Here's another platitude
they jam down our throat:
children are our future.
Children are not our future,
and I can prove it
with my usual flawless logic.
Children can't be our
future because
by the time the future arrives
they won't be children anymore,
so blow me.
Yes.
As you may have noticed I always like
to present a carefully reasoned argument.
Raising a child
is not difficult.
They try to make it into this
mysterious, difficult task.
Nothing to it.
Easiest thing in the world
to raise a kid
if you follow the steps.
First step,
you take the kid and you put it
out on the street corner,
and you leave him there.
You come back a week later.
If the kid is still there
you've got yourself
a stupid fucking kid.
Then you just proceed
from that point.
It's all bullshit, folks.
It's all bullshit,
and it's bad for you.
Now, you wouldn't know it
from some of the things
I've said over the years,
but I like people.
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 a
minute, minute and a half,
I've got to get the
fuck out of there.
And my reason for this, my reason is
for one that you may share possibly.
I have a very low tolerance
level for stupid bullshit.
That's all. Stupid bullshit.
You know.
And everyone wants to tell
you their stupid bullshit,
and a lot of them don't know when to
stop talking. You ever run into that guy?
Doesn't know when
to stop talking,
just continues running at the
mouth like verbal diarrhea.
Don't know when the
conversation is over.
Stupid, trivial shit you
don't care anything about,
things you're not even
remotely interested in.
"Did I tell you
about my mom and dad?
Well, my mom and dad went on vacation
down to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.
This is about six
years ago, I think.
It seemed like it was
six, about six years ago.
Six or seven - possibly seven.
Could be.
Somewhere in there, six seven.
More than six; less than seven.
Let's call it six and a half.
So my mom and dad went on
vacation to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky,
and my dad
found a big rock.
What he thought was a big rock
turns out it was a dinosaur turd,
a petrified
dinosaur turd, 27 pounder.
You know, now that
I think of it,
it might have been
eight years ago.
That would have been
close to Y2K, wouldn't it?
Remember Y2K?
Whatever happened?
Everybody's all worried about that.
Nothing ever happened.
Ha, ha, ha, big fuss.
Nothing every happened.
You know? God.
That was strange, you know."
"So let's say -
we'll say it's eight years.
It was either eight or five.
So my dad gave my
mom this big turd.
He says, 'Here, Mom.
This is a big dinosaur turd.
Put it in your purse
to take that home.'
My mom said, 'Dad, I don't
think this is a dinosaur turd.
This thing is still warm.
Whoever dropped this thing is
still walking around in here,
and we'd better get the
fuck out of this cave.'
Nine years ago.
Nine.
I know it was nine because my wife
was pregnant with our first boy,
Mach Moody Benel Sayid
Ben Salem,
and he's ten now.
Or is he? He's 11.
Maybe he's 11.
He's either 11 or 5."
And while all of this is going on
you're searching through your mind
for something graceful and
diplomatic you can say
to bring the conversation
to a close,
and all I can ever come up with
is shut the fuck up.
Shut the fuck up.
Shut the fuck up.
Shut the fuck up.
But you can't say that.
Good manners don't permit it.
You have to find another way,
and I go to body language.
I try to use my body language to
show that the conversation is over.
I find myself leaning
at a 45-degree angle
trying to indicate the direction
that I'd like to go
if this person
would just shut the fuck up.
And then I might even
give him a verbal cue.
"Surgery. Surgery.
I'm late for surgery.
I'm having my ears sewn shut."
You know.
Yeah.
Same people on the phone.
Same people on the phone -
don't know when to hang up.
Don't know when the
conversation is over.
Dumb, trivial shit.
Dumb questions.
"So what are you guys gonna
do five summers from now?
We haven't made any plans.
Marge wants to go to the beach.
The kids kind of
like it at the lake,
and I want to go
to the mountains.
Grandma wants to visit her
sister in Frog Balls, Arkansas.
How about you, have
you made any plans?
It's never too
early to make plans.
We're going to Norway in 2025.
Did you know up until the 1950's,
Norway's economy was
based largely on fishing,
but now, thanks to improved
drilling techniques
and the expansion
of the global economy."
Once again, searching through your
mind for something gentle you can say.
"Blow it out your ass,"
comes to mind.
Or shut your fucking pie-hole.
Or if your friend prefers cake,
shut your fucking cake-hole.
But you can't say these things,
and you can't use body language
on the phone.
Well, you could always
amuse yourself, you know.
Or if it's your mother you
show your mother respect;
you put her on speakerphone.
But that doesn't move
the conversation along.
You have to find another trick.
And I go to tone of voice.
Did you ever use your tone of voice to
try to talk them into a soft landing?
You try to coax the
person toward the end.
"Right. Good.
Okay. Good.
All right then.
Good. Great. Okay.
Good. Okay.
All right.
"Oh, fuck, there he goes again.
That cocksucker.
"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."
"Listen, Reverend."
"Reverend, I hate to be rude,
but I just took a three
and a half hour shit,
and I'm bleeding
from the asshole.
Well, I don't have
any mercurochrome.
Yes. Yeah, I'll put a Snoopy
band-aid on it. Thank you.
You do that for me. Yes,
say a prayer for my asshole.
Thank you very much."
You have to resort
to these tactics
because many people do not
understand what a phone call should be
or what a phone call is.
Ideally, a phone call is
the brief exchange of a few
vital pieces of information.
This is a phone call.
"Hey, Steve, what time's the
circle jerk start tonight?
Ten o'clock. Okay. Listen, I'm
going to be a little bit late.
You'll have to start without me.
Oh, don't worry. I'll catch up.
I'm eating a whole bunch of
oysters and watching a horny movie.
It's called
Tarzan Fucks a Zebra.
Russell Crowe.
Well, it's kind of a fantasy. Right now
Renee Zellweger is blowing a unicorn."
That's a phone call.
It should not be a
two and a half hour harangue
of your third cousin describing
her mailman's liposuction.
God, people are fucking boring.
People are just fucking boring.
You know what would be
great for a guy like me?
Just to be in a coma.
Huh?
Wouldn't that be great?
Nothing to do all day.
You just crap out and breathe
through a fucking tube.
They feed you through a tube.
There's nothing to do.
Whoa, you talk about being a
couch potato, that's it man.
No phone calls coming in.
Nobody dropping by unexpectedly.
And if they do drop by you're
completely unaware of it
because you're in
a fucking coma,
and you're practically
clinically dead.
And you don't have to
listen to their stupid shit.
Their stupid shit like about
their new ride-around lawnmower
with the two-tone horn and the GPS
in case they get lost on the lawn.
And their boss and their job
and their car and their kids.
Jesus fucking Christ,
their kids.
Folks, folks, nothing worse.
Nothing worse
than to be stuck somewhere
with some married asshole
and have to listen to him
tell you about his fucking kids.
Let me tell you
something, folks.
Nobody cares about
your children, okay?
No. We don't care.
We don't care.
Nobody cares about your children.
I speak for everyone.
I've been appointed by the rest
of the group to inform you
we don't care
about your children.
That's why they're your children
so you can care about them,
and we don't have to bother.
But they tell you anyway.
"Todd is in the
seventh grade now.
He's in the cheese club.
Jaselle is 5 and already
she's had nine periods.
Johan is 11,
and he pretty much sits
around the house hallucinating all the time."
Then they want to
show you the pictures.
Here's another ordeal,
the pictures of these
little gargoyles
that they have
loosed from their loins.
A lot of these
professional mommies,
boy, they think there's nothing
better than having a baby.
Oh, they think it's the
biggest thing in the world
like it's a big event
having a baby.
I call it pumping out a unit.
That's all they're doing.
That's all they're doing.
Pumping out a fucking unit.
Ba-boom.
Ba-boom.
Like some of them like
assembly lines like a factory.
Ba-ba-boom.
Every fucking year,
ba-ba-boom.
"Hey, Jeff, want a kid?"
Ba-ba-boom.
"How about twins?"
Ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-boom.
Polluting the earth.
Polluting the earth
with these creatures
who have no future.
They have no future.
Have you pictured what this planet
is going to be like in 40 to 50 years?
It's going to be
a big smoking ball of shit,
a big, smoking, flaming,
stinking ball of gaseous shit.
That's what's gonna happen.
That's what's gonna happen.
It's irresponsible to
have more than one child.
Have one.
Have one child, replacement
value for yourself, that's all.
Don't even replace your husband.
Don't replace your husband.
No.
He's done enough
fucking damage as it is.
But they want to show
you the pictures.
Sometimes they warn you,
you know. That's good.
They say, "Hey, you want to
see some pictures of my kid?"
No,
just describe them to me.
But they show you, and there are two
ways you can handle it, I have found.
Two ways to handle the pictures.
The first is the easy way.
You just kind of take
it all in stride,
you matter-of-factly go
along with the game.
"Oh, uh-huh, boy.
Girl. Yeah.
Older boy.
Older girl. Good. Four.
Listen, I have to go wash my
crotch. I'll see you later."
Then you get the
fuck out of there.
Or you can do what I do -
you can do what I do, be a
little honest about what you see.
Take a chance.
Tell the truth.
"Look at the fucking
head on that kid."
"Geez, where did he
get a fucking head like that?
That thing is huge.
Have you put him on YouTube yet?
Boy, you get a lot of hits
with a head like that.
Or put him on eBay. You might
make a little money, you know.
I'm sure some European circus would
snap his ass up in a fucking minute, boy.
Goddamn that thing is unusual.
Listen, maybe he'll grow into it.
You never know with kids, huh.
Hey, let me ask you
a practical question.
Where do you find hats
for a kid like that?"
Tell the truth.
Don't be bullshitting people.
Don't be bullshitting. There's
enough bullshit as it is, folks.
There's plenty of bullshit.
Then they want to show you the
pictures of the little girl
whose second teeth
are coming in,
and they think it's cute.
It's not.
It's fucking horrifying.
Did you ever look at the teeth
coming in on some of these kids?
Did you ever take a good, close
look at actually in the mouth?
Take a look and see different -
damn, sometimes they got
two, three rows of fucking
teeth coming in there.
All odd angles.
There's one under the tongue.
That's unusual. Look at that.
A sublingual tooth.
What do you know.
Once again, tell the truth.
"You better start saving
your money right now, pal.
It's gonna cost you a
fucking fortune to fix that.
You're gonna need an international
team of orthodontists around the clock
just to make a dent.
You might want to call FEMA.
That looks like a real
fucking problem to me.
Look at that.
You have the number
to the National Guard?
Give them a ring.
That's good.
Listen, why don't you
just have them all pulled
and let her start
over again, you know?
Or take a picture of her
with her mouth closed.
That would save you a lot of
heartache in the long run.
Listen, you're not Catholic
by any chance, are you?
Well, the reason I ask is
you might want to take her to Lewards
and pray for a miracle over there."
Tell the truth.
Don't be bullshitting people.
Like I say, there's
enough bullshit as it is.
There's enough
bullshit as it is.
In fact, there's just
enough, did you know that?
There's just enough bullshit to
hold things together in this country.
Bullshit is the glue that
binds us as a nation.
Where would we be without
our safe, familiar,
American bullshit.
Land of the free.
Home of the brave.
The American dream.
All men are equal.
Justice is blind.
The press is free.
Your vote counts.
Business is honest.
The good guys win.
The police are on your side.
God is watching you.
Your standard of living
will never decline.
And everything is
gonna be just fine.
The official national
bullshit story.
I call it the
American okie-doke.
Every one, every one of those items is
provably untrue at one level or another,
but we believe them
because they're pounded into our
heads from the time we're children.
That's what they do
with that kind of thing,
pound it into the heads of kids
because they know that
children are much too young
to be able to
muster an intellectual defense
against a sophisticated
idea like that.
And they know that
up to a certain age
children believe everything
their parents tell them,
and as a result, they never
learn to question things.
Nobody questions things
in this country anymore.
Nobody questions anything.
Everybody is too fat and happy.
Everybody has got a cell phone that'll
make pancakes and rub their balls now.
Way too fucking prosperous
for our own good,
way too fucking prosperous.
Americans have been bought off
in silence by toys and gizmos,
and no one learns
to question things.
Do you remember - Okay.
Now, okay.
You remember Barbara Bush?
I call her the silver douche bag.
You remember her?
Barbara Bush. She is the mother
of Governor George Bush.
I call him Governor Bush because
that's the only elected office
he ever held legally
in our country, okay.
George Bush, Governor Bush.
I don't care where
they hang his portrait.
I don't care how big his library is.
He'll always be Governor Bush.
I don't even capitalize his
name when I type it anymore.
So she's the mother
of Governor George Bush.
She's also the wife of
his father, George H. W. Bush
who did become president in the
normal, legal, traditional manner.
And when he did, she came along
for the ride as first lady,
and that's been the
tradition up 'til now.
A man has been elected and
the woman has come along for
the ride as the first lady.
And usually, as in
American life in general,
the woman is condescended to,
patronized,
given something to
do to keep her busy.
A lot of times they give her a charity
or a cause, something she can champion.
Betty Ford was told to drink.
Remember that?
Yeah, that was
Betty Ford's assignment.
"Betty, you get drunk and get totally falling
down, fucked-up, shit-faced drunk, okay?
You just get fucked up drunk,
and we'll hose you down, baby.
We'll hose you down.
We'll put you in a
facility, you'll get sober,
and then we'll put your
name on the facility.
Liza Minnelli can get sober, and
everything is going to be okay."
That was her assignment.
Barbara Bush's assignment was
getting children to read.
Remember that?
Getting children to read.
They figured she had
so much success with George
that she would be a natural
to get children to read,
which misses the
point completely.
Not important to get
children to read.
Children who want to
read are gonna read.
Kids who want to learn to
read are gonna learn to read.
Much more important to teach
children to question what they read.
Children should be taught to
question everything.
To question everything they
read, everything they hear.
Children should be taught
to question authority.
Parents never teach their children
to question authority because
parents are authority
figures themselves,
and they don't want to undermine their
own bullshit inside the household.
So they stroke the kid
and the kid strokes them,
and they all stroke each other,
all grow up all fucked up,
and they come to
shows like this.
Kids have to be warned that there's
bullshit coming down the road.
That's the biggest thing
you can do for a kid.
Tell them what life in
this country is about.
It's about a whole lot of bullshit
that needs to be detected and avoided.
That's the best thing you can do.
No one told me.
No one told me a
thing like that.
I was never warned
about any of this.
I had to find all of
it out for myself.
And there are still,
as with you probably,
a lot of things that you're expected
to believe and accept in America
that I personally
have a problem with,
and I question a
lot of these things.
I'll give you an example.
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 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.
Now, here's another slogan -
here's another slogan
you run into all the time.
"God bless America."
Once again, respectfully, I say to
myself, "What the fuck does that mean?"
God bless America.
Is that a request?
Is that a demand?
Is that a suggestion?
Politicians say it
at the end of every speech
as if it were some sort of verbal
tick that they can't get rid of.
"God bless you and
God bless America.
God bless you and
God bless America."
I guess they figure
if they leave it out
someone is gonna think
they're bad Americans.
Let me tell you a little
secret about God, folks.
God doesn't give a
flying fuck about America, okay.
He doesn't care.
He never cared
about this country.
He never has. He never will.
He doesn't care
about this country
any more than
he cares about Mongolia,
Transylvania, Pittsburgh,
the Suez Canal
or the North Pole.
He simply doesn't care, okay.
He doesn't care.
Listen, good.
There are 200 countries
in the world now.
Do these people honestly think that
God is sitting around
picking out his favorites?
Why would he do that? Why would
God have a favorite country?
And why would it be America
out of all the countries?
Because we have the most money?
Because he likes
our National Anthem?
Maybe it's because he heard we have 18
delicious flavors of classic Rice-A-Roni.
It's delusional thinking.
It's delusional thinking,
and Americans are not alone
with these sort of delusions.
Military cemeteries around
the world are packed
with brainwashed, dead soldiers
who were convinced
God was on their side.
America prays for God
to destroy our enemies.
Our enemies pray for
God to destroy us.
Somebody is gonna
be disappointed.
Somebody is wasting
their fucking time.
Could it be everyone?
Now,
if people want to say God bless America
that's their business.
I don't care. But here's what
I don't understand.
If they say God bless America,
presumably they believe in God,
and if they do, they must have
heard God loved everyone.
That's what he said.
He loved everyone,
and he loved them equally.
So why would these people ask God
to do something that went
against his own teachings?
You know what these God bless
America people ought to do?
They ought to check with that
Jesus fellow they're so crazy about.
They're always talking
about what would Jesus do,
what would Jesus do.
They don't want to
know so they can do it.
They just want to know so they
could tell other people to do it.
Well, I'll tell you what
Jesus would have done.
I'll tell you what
Jesus would have done.
He would have got up on the top of
the Empire State Building and said,
"God bless everyone around the world,
forever and ever, until the end of time."
That's what Jesus
would have done,
and that's what these
people should do,
or else they should admit that
God bless America is really just
some sort of an empty slogan
with no real meaning
except for something vague
like good luck.
Good luck, America.
You're on your own.
Which is a little bit
closer to the truth.
Here's a civic custom
that I don't understand.
Maybe you can help me.
Taking off your hat
when a flag passes by
or when some jack-off at the ballpark
starts singing the National Anthem.
They tell you to
take off the hat.
What the fuck does a hat have
to do with being patriotic?
What possible relationship
exists between the uncovered head
and a feeling that
ought to live in your heart?
Suppose you have a red,
white and blue hat.
Suppose you have a hat
made out of a flag.
Why would you take it
off to honor the flag?
Wouldn't you leave it on
and point it toward the flag?
And what's so bad about hats
that you have to take them off?
Why not take off your pants
or your shoes? They tell you
that at the airport.
They say take off your shoes.
They tell you it's
national security,
so taking off your shoes
could be patriotic too.
I started to question all of this
stupid hat shit when I was a kid.
When I was a kid
I was a Catholic,
at least until I reached
the age of reason, okay.
So I was a Catholic for about two, two
and a half years, something like that.
And during that time one of
the things they told us was
that if a boy or a man
went into a church,
he had to remove his hat in order
to honor the presence of God.
But they had already told
me that God was everywhere.
So I used to wonder,
well, if God is everywhere,
why would you even own a hat?
Why not show your respect,
don't even buy a fucking hat.
And just to confuse things further they
told the women exactly the opposite.
Catholic women and girls had to cover
their heads when they went into church.
Same as in certain temples.
Jewish men have to cover
their heads in those temples.
In those same temples Jewish women
not allowed to cover their heads.
So try to figure this shit out.
Catholic men and
Jewish women, no hats.
Catholic women and
Jewish men, hats.
Somebody's got the whole thing totally
fucking backward, don't you think?
And what is this religious
fascination with headgear?
Every religion has got a
different fucking hat.
Did you ever notice that?
The Hindus have a turban.
The Sikhs have a
tall, white turban.
Jews have yarmulke.
The Muslims have a kufi.
The Bishop has a pointy hat on one
day and a round hat on another day.
Cardinal has a red hat, Pope has a white.
Everybody's got a fucking hat.
One group takes them off;
the other group puts them on.
Personally, I would never want
to be a member of any group
where you either have to wear
a hat or you can't wear a hat.
I think -
I think all religions should
have one rule and one rule only:
hats optional.
That's all you need to run
a really good religion.
Here's another one of
these civic customs.
Swearing on the Bible.
Do you understand that shit?
They tell you to raise your right hand
and place your left hand on the Bible.
Does this stuff really
matter which hand?
Does God really give a fuck
about details like this?
Suppose you put your right hand on
the Bible and you raise your left hand,
would that count?
Or would God say,
"Sorry. Wrong hand. Try again."
And why does one hand
have to be raised?
What is the magic
in this gesture?
This seems like some sort of a
primitive, voodoo, mojo shtick.
Why not put your
left hand on the Bible
and let your right hand
hang down by your side?
It's more natural.
Or put it in your pocket.
Remember what your
mother used to say?
Don't put your hands
in your pockets.
Does she know something
that we don't know?
Is this hand shit
really important?
Well, let's get
back to the Bible,
America's favorite
national theatrical prop.
Suppose the Bible they hand you
to swear on is upside down
or backward or both,
and you swear to tell the truth
an upside down, backward Bible.
Would that count?
Suppose the Bible they hand you is an
old Bible and half the pages are missing.
Suppose all 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,
backward Chinese Braille Bible
with half the pages missing?
At what point does all of this
stuff just break down
and become just a lot of stupid
shit that somebody made up?
They fucking made it up, folks.
It's make-believe.
It's make-believe.
Now, all right. Okay.
Let's leave
the Bible aside.
We'll get back to the science
fiction reading later.
The more important
question is
what is the big deal about
swearing to God in the first place?
Why does swearing to God mean
you're going to tell the truth?
It wouldn't affect me.
If they said,
"You swear to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?"
I'd say yeah.
I'll tell you about as much truth as
the people who wrote that fucking Bible.
How do you like that, huh? Huh?
Swearing on the Bible
doesn't mean anything.
It's kid - swearing
to God is kid stuff.
Did you ever - remember
when you were a kid,
if you told another kid
something he didn't quite believe
he'd say,
"You swear to God?"
I would always say,
"Yeah, I swear to God,"
even if I was lying.
Why not?
What's gonna happen if I lie?
Nothing.
Nothing happens if you lie
unless you get caught, and
that's a whole different story.
Sometimes that kid would think he
was being slick with me and he'd say,
"You swear on
your mother's grave?"
I'd say, "Yeah, why not?"
First of all, my mother was alive.
She didn't have a grave.
Second of all,
even if she was dead,
what's she gonna do, rise from
the grave and come and haunt me?
Come and haunt me all because
I told a lie to an 8-year-old?
Get fucking real, will you?
Sometimes I would say,
"I swear on my mother's tits."
Kids are impressed
with things like that.
I mean, I don't care about
my mother's tits either.
I didn't care if they fell off.
Fuck her.
Not my problem.
They're your tits, ma.
You keep an eye on them.
Swearing to God
doesn't mean anything.
Swearing on the Bible
doesn't mean anything.
You know why?
Because Bible or no
Bible, God or no God,
if it suits their purposes,
people are gonna lie in court.
The police do it all
the time, all the time.
Yes, they do.
It's part of their
job to protect, to serve
and to commit perjury whenever
it supports the state's case.
Swearing on the Bible
is just one more way
of controlling people
and keeping them in line,
and it's one more thing that
holds us back as a species.
Here's one more item for you,
the last in our civics book:
rights.
Boy, everyone in this country
is always running around,
yammering about
their fucking rights.
I have a right. You have no right.
We have a right.
They don't a have right.
Folks,
I hate to spoil your fun but
there's no such thing
as rights, okay.
They're imaginary.
We made them up,
like the Boogie Man,
the Three Little Pigs, Pinocchio,
Mother Goose, shit like that.
Rights are an idea.
They're just imaginary.
They're a cute idea.
Cute but that's all.
Cute and fictional.
But if you think you do have
rights let me ask you this,
where do they come from?
People say, "Well, they come from
God. They're God-given rights."
Oh, fuck, here we go again.
Here we go again.
The God excuse.
The last refuge of a man with
no answers and no argument,
"They came from God."
Anything we can't describe
must have come from God.
Personally, folks, I believe
that if your rights came from God
he would have given you the
right to some food everyday,
and he would have given you the
right to a roof over your head.
God would have been
looking out for you.
God would have been looking
out for you, you know that?
He wouldn't have been worrying
about making sure you have a gun
so you can get drunk on Sunday night
and kill your girlfriend's parents.
But let's say it's true. Let's
say God gave us these rights.
Why would he give us a
certain number of rights?
The Bill of Rights in this
country has ten stipulations, okay.
Ten rights.
And apparently God was doing
sloppy work that week because
we've had to amend the Bill of
Rights an additional 17 times,
so God forgot a couple
of things like slavery.
Just fucking slipped his mind.
But let's say God
gave us the original ten.
He gave the British 13.
The British Bill of Rights
has 13 stipulations.
The Germans have 29.
The Belgians have 25.
The Swedish have only 6.
And some people in the world
have no rights at all.
What kind of a fucking, goddamn,
God-giving deal is that?
No rights at all?
Why would God give different
people in different countries
different numbers
of different rights?
Boredom?
Amusement?
Bad arithmetic?
Do we find out at long
last after all this time
that God is weak in math skills?
Doesn't sound like
divine planning to me.
Sounds more like human planning.
Sounds more like one group
trying to control another group.
In other words, business
as usual in America.
Now, if you think you do have
rights, one last assignment for you.
Next time you're at he
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.
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 interment 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.
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 are you going to 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 you have
no right to your opinion."
Then shoot the
fuck and walk away.
Thank you.