George Carlin - Unmasked with George Carlin

welcome to XM performance theater I'm Sonny Fox and we are honoring this this time around an icon a fellow who has really changed comedy as we know it literally he's celebrating 50 years of entertainment this year he's gone through more changes and most people do in a lifetime and he's invited us along on those changes and sort of like the Beatles we've gone through those changes with him and he spent 50 years think about that 50 years making us laugh and more importantly in some people's opinion he spent 50 years making us think as you welcome please mr. George Carlin mmm thank you thanks very much thanks for coming sure this is Excel right yes it is is it so Kayla just incidentally sure good you look pretty good for an old fart well first time I'm done make up for radio old fart is uh boy I forgot you're not an old fart you're an old [ __ ] Yeah right okay I'm gonna [ __ ] kind of like a guy it's kind of like a fat [ __ ] tall [ __ ] the skinny [ __ ] short [ __ ] you know um that's not old man old man is kind of like not an age or a period of your life old man is a point of view you know it's a way of looking at the world are you there are some guys who are old men in their 20s and 30s you've seen them you know they just got old mannish ways sometimes you see a little kid with no glasses and a double-breasted suit he's like a little old man so it's not old man it's not old fart which is kind of like man it's uh it's all [ __ ] you know in this respect [ __ ] is the synonym for the word fellow well you look pretty good for an old fellow okay well I feel pretty good for 69 year old guy yeah you're gonna be celebrating 70 next month uh that's right May yeah Wow seven years old now fifty years in show business what I was doing some research I thought how often do you speak to somebody who's worked with Ed Sullivan and Keanu Reeves that's quite a ha ha it was more fun by the way I am Keanu is really fun on the set with the Alex winter I was in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure with the two of them and then the sequel Bill and Ted's bogus journey right yeah there were a lot of fun now they were like they're very strange but you know well they were they would never calm down until the until they call for action on a shot they would clown and kid around and play grab-ass and everything right up until the last second and then it would be like and action and suddenly they would be in the scene and it threw me because I was trying to be an actor you know I was trying to be serious about what I had to do and I'd have to just stand there I kind of like keep my mind on my first line you know because I'm not a trained actor and we'll talk about your movie career and we're going to advise each as it is yes invite people up for questions throughout this whole thing good but I do want to go back to what started this whole thing right you were born in New York that started it now this is caller okay oh it's collar straight looks great I kind of fussy about the collar huh your mother made a rather important decision when you were just a baby to bring is that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he was a drinker and he was a very successful advertising salesman on newspapers selling space and he was an accomplished public speaker after-dinner speaker they called him um and he was a drinker and a bit of a bully he didn't he never did beat her or touch her or anything like that but he kind of terrorized her and was abusive to my brother so she didn't want that happening to me and she when I was 2 months old and he was my brother was 5 years old she took us out the fire escape window in our in her father's apartment in New York I and her arms and my brother at her hand down the fire escape into the backyard through the backyards out to Broadway and into my uncle's Packard and drove us off to the country and she never looked back and she got back into business and advertising and raised two boys during the last half of the recession other had to depression the Great Depression and the Second World War so she did quite a job your mom has been quite an influence on yeah yeah well she was the sole parent of course and she was absent because she had to work so I I did a lot of parenting to myself I I did a lion gauged in a lot of mental activity to kind of fill the void which the children will do and I had radio to listen to but she was very conscious of language as was her father her father about New York City policemen my grandpa whom I never knew I never knew any of the grandparents I never knew my father either I had the one parent in my experience and my grandfather who was a cop in New York 20 years Iran you know back way back because that they were all rather old when their kids were born so as a result this was in the 1890 and yeah he he wrote out my grandfather wrote out many of the works of Shakespeare longhand during his lifetime because the joy it gave him that was the explanation he had so that's an indication of the language gene at work and my mother inherited that the Irish have that to a great degree some do some do some don't but it's kind of a generalization but it's true it's an Irish trait language and gift of gab my father had a my mother had it so it was natural for me to have that and then - she reinforced it these things have to be reinforced as well and she reinforced it and now your brother Patrick was five years older than you Patrick yes uh usually when you have a brother five years older usually become the punching bag no how do you serve is he out getting lame fighting I don't want to bother with that's the you know John for bullying and a son is nature really he you know what he told me he said when you came home from the hospital and you know about how our young child can react to a new baby in the house there are kind of certain horror stories you hear about how tough it is for the kid to to adjust to that and sometimes this hostility he said I was so glad when you came home from the hospital he says I was so curious about you and I used to watch in the crib you know and so he was he has a wonderful wonderful nature but he inherited I think also my father's temper so he was more of a fighter than I was in the neighborhood he would he was he was a physical guy you know in the bars and on the street corners but I wasn't really of that of that type Buhl of fact used one of Patrick's jokes last night on stage yeah he's a great guy he's still alive of course up in Woodstock he said something that I wrote down a long time ago and I just started saying it recently he said what we should do is take all the mentally defective people in this country and give them government jobs and just sit back and watch things improve he's pretty funny guy and very verbal very very verbal more so than I even I think um have a sort of same perspective on things that's it Pat and I yeah yeah we both feel it's uh you know we're both opposed to organized religion we're both opposed to him you know the way government had way we the way these citizens have organized themselves in this country which passes for government I think the the Republic is a failure he you know we both for the most part thing this experiment was nice while it lasted and we're not too impressed with the human species because you know the record is rather rather not a good one and so we we inhabit the same area and those kind of philosophical areas and we we talk a lot on the phone a couple times a week and and we have you see what we have I'm 69 years old now he's about he's 75 and we have common memories we have common experiences and nomenclature and things in our childhood that I can call him up and mention a brand name that is no longer in existence I can like Ipana toothpaste I can call it Magus a tip at Ipana you'll say yeah well you know it's so it's so great we're both we're both world over Irish there's another generalization the Irish a very kind of sentimental and like that you know and and and there's a nostalgia that we love and and we're both we're both a bug for those artifacts of our childhood and and it's just nice to have that so common vocabulary common background common memories you know would you remember by the way the spokesperson for Ipana television uh I can be reminded Nucky beaver I didn't know that yeah really at all I don't know where radio kids Robbie we experience television when we came home from the street corner but we didn't hang on the television set after school the way met the next generation did we were radio kids and then as fast as we can get out of the house we were street corner guys speaking of street corner you hung around Morningside Heights Morningside Heights he had a different name for well they called it Morningside Heights Columbia University because of political reasons of their own we lived in what we call white Harlem it was a West Side of Harlem it was technically in a manner of speaking the white area of West Harlem we had Cuban Puerto Rican a lot of Dominican the men a great number of Dominicans in Manhattan now and black black Harlem of course so we lived in a kind of a mixed area especially as you got out from the Irish end clave we lived in a little I would call an Irish Enclave and as you went out from actually on LaSalle Street at one time at LaSalle Street a 1/2 of that Street was white and the other half of it was black and there wasn't a lot of hostility I mean there were occasional things and there were attitudes probably that people held privately I don't know I didn't never have that in my household I never had those those words and those those attitudes expressed so I didn't have them but I Know Who I heard the kids around me but there was never any open hostility because when you live and in the area between two very different areas you have to learn to get along it's a luxury to live in the middle of one of those areas and have all these attitudes and you know BP have a chip on your shoulder but when you live right where the two of them join you're forced to sort of live in a third area which is the mixture and it's very nice it's very it's a good way to start your life well the people in that area your childhood certainly impressed you you shared him with all of us father Rivera who was he really that lenient you could actually see the line move that's yes yeah father we had all you know we had about six priests in the parish father Kelly father Ford was the pastor father Russell father Smith and some of them came I don't remember the names father Daley and father Halliburton and father Rivera who was there primarily because there was starting to be more of a Spanish representation I don't use words like Latino and Hispanic I say what we grew up with the Spanish people you know Spanish heritage somewhere in there mixed blood there's been Spain so I call them Spanish people and father of air was there to serve them and to pasture them or I should say to tend to their pastoral needs and and one of them was confession and father Rivera didn't understand I mean he understood English but he didn't he didn't sound like he understood and we would go to father Rivera because he was notoriously alright that's probably not the right where he was famously more lenient and you would get a lighter sentence a lighter penance even confessions and you could see people would switch the line people on father Kelly's line when father Rivera would show up and you know they kissed the stole and put it on and go in the confessional you would see people race and Russia over the father laverra's like a father in there you know I say today Anthony and Matty he didn't question some of the priests you know they would question so how do you touch yourself how did you touch yourself son he didn't go ahead about how I touched myself no you just started you know he didn't water that you just started doing a voice you used to sit around the tape recorder and record these voices well I got this was a turning point in my life and it's one that people should know about when I was a young boy I was a mimic and I could imitate people in the neighborhood authority figures teachers shop owners other parents cops on the beat and people on television do little limitations there were largely imitations of other people doing imitation that's how you learn to do Jimmy Cagney you see another guy do it on stage you say ok and you copy him it's easier because they point out the highlights of sweet but neighborhood stuff I was kind of the class clown in in school and then after school I was kind of like the neighborhood wiseguy one one of the neighborhood wiseguys on the street corner and I would gather a little audience because I would put together little routines I had little parodies that I did I lifted things you everyone steals from comedians when they're starting so I would steal imitations in Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Cagney and Peter Lorre and I would do fake commercials that I had heard or read and mad well mad comics came along a little bit later there was another magazine called thousand jokes and I put together little routines and and they would say Georgie hey Georgie do not think about such and I would stand up and do it and it would come out differently each time and I developed this ability to to stand up in front of a group of people and get their attention and get their approval that was important to me apparently when I was a little kid I'd go to my mother's office and I and she said imitating Mae West do the imitations do the imitations and I would do the imitations for the ladies in her office and they would laugh and I noticed I don't remember noticing this per se but I must have noticed that this got me the attention of adults kids don't forget I was alone in that house most of the day when I wasn't in school I came home and I was alone I got the attention of these adults and I got their approval through their laughter they were smaller less saying good boy George good going way to go yes he's good he's cute it ain't like cute ain't I clever that's what this job is so as a youngster I wanted to be a comedian I I was probably only eight or nine or ten years old when I began to form an idea that I wanted to be in the movies like Danny Kaye and like Red Skelton and be and I call that being an actor but it was actually being a comedian and pretty soon I found out the word comedian and I wanted to be a comedian and when I graduated from eighth grade the last thing I graduated from by the way my mother asked me what I wanted and one of the brothers at school brother Conrad had told us that he can get a clergyman's discount on cameras so I asked him if he could get a clergyman's discount on tape recorders now this was five years after the second world war tape recorders had come out as consumer items but they were as big as a small Buick they were large they were like this big and you had to buy them in a showroom up up above the street they were announced a sale in stores I bought this big webcore long story and I'm keeping it long that I used it I used it to do voices and do little sketches and skits and fake radio shows and fake newscasts and commercials and I used it to more or less train myself for the thing I wanted to do my mother was very progressive to have bought me that as a graduation present I mean it was but she was a she was a far thinker to see that in me and go ahead and foster that and reward that even though she wanted me she didn't want me to follow it but she knew it was a healthy thing for me to be doing you've always been a planner yeah he had this optic lens oh yeah this optimistic attitude that if you planted well enough and you meant well it's going to happen you believe that well I would only plant things I felt you know that obviously that I wanted and thought I was qualified for but this is the good example this career planning when I was a kid I said well first I'll be first I'll be C I wanted to be an actor I called it actor because I saw them in the movies and I knew they were movie actors so Danny Kaye and these guys I thought actor I care okay so first I'll be a stand-up comedian don't forget when I was a kid all the only place stand-up comedians worked was nightclubs those kind of really more or less sophisticated places where um where you saw in the movies you know and people danced and there was a singer and and it was a comic and um and I never got into those places I was too young and it wasn't in my world so I knew about camellias from Radio and from television later but movies when I was young stir so I aimed at that and I thought well the way to get there would be to first become first get into radio that would be my first move because then I could practice using my voice and I could learn to speak and do a lot of these things without an audience directly in front of me which is the usual thing in radio they're not sitting in the studio and therefore I wouldn't be as nervous or fraid and I could kind of build up my confidence and then I could become a stand-up comedian because by then there were further venues for comedians I thought then I can be a stand-up comedian and then I can go then if I'm really good at that then they have to let me in the movies and that was where I looked at they had to let me in the movies and that was the plan and it became more sophisticated as I get went through 13 14 15 years and and started to actually think of ways to go about it now you actually revealed your life's plan in what we 11 years old and yeah when I was 11 was 5th grade sister Nina and I saw her by the way just about three or four years ago she came to a show really of mine up in Wisconsin yeah she was 81 sharp as sharp as can be sharp then quick you know she said yeah you lived on the top of the hill you know they did I remember me for other reasons but but she but she actually remembered that I lived right up the block from the school 5th grade sister nice to sing at the club meeting they had once a week to have a club meeting and there'd be new business and all business and all that kind of stuff and then there'd be the entertainment you could do an imitation you could bring in your banjo play the piano sing a song I would always stand up and sing a song I sang manana in her class mañana mañana mañana I used to only know for me and you know some of the guys thought it was goofy and some of them liked it but sister 9 insistent eyes class we were assigned to write an autobiography I think fifth grade is about time to look back on your life so part of the autobiography was the last page and that page was what I'm going to be and I said I want to be either an actor announcer disc jockey imitating Fred imitator I guess I called it our an actor I know once I went inside with actor actor comedian imitator announcer or something like that neither so there it was you know right in front of everyone for and there was a nice amalgam you can tell that the thing I wanted most was attention that was really what sentence was all about you know ain't IQ day-night clever look at me well you went to the army you got that out of there force yeah here a frog sorry and luckily there was the radio station yeah just off base yes in Shreveport Shreveport Louisiana which sounds like a kind of a dopey place for this actually was a very hot radio market they had nine radio stations at that time and was very competitive and top-40 radio was just beginning and rock and roll was just beginning because Elvis Presley's first hit came out in nineteen I believe 55 or 56 and there I was right on the cusp of all of that and I wanted to be a this announcer disc jockey guy when I got out of the Air Force my plan was to go in the Air Force do four years from 17 to 21 get out at the age of 21 and use the GI Bill to go to school to learn to be an announcer and a disc jockey so that I would be learning when I was 21 now I got in there and when I was 18 I was in an amateur play downtown in Shreveport and a very good Community Theatre Company by the way Shreveport Little Theatre and I was doing a play called golden boy and in it was Joe Monroe and Joe Monroe was was famous as a radio personality in Shreveport I was out on the base I was in the Air Force out on the base and I in my off time I would do this play and Joe was a famous radio personality he did the morning show he did the afternoon Drivetime and I didn't know he owned the station but so it was a really great station cage okay Jo me and Jeff was the clue yeah well you know maybe there was a slight inkling in my mind I know that he was in the outright owner actually was 51% now now that's that station was number one in a nine station market in spite of the fact that it was a daytime only station they had to come on the air every morning again at sunrise turn the transmitter on and gain back all the listeners who had tuned out its you know at Sun down there are some stations of low power this was a thousand water thousand watts and daytime only but it was number one and it about a 50% share of the market and this is what we nine stations competing with a ton of the stations they had 50% of the listeners younge I'll just say this is what it sounded like if you lived in three four LS you want to roll that my show go get in solid how you doing lots of music coming up for you between now 5:45 got the man who Everly Brothers Records will be playing both sides of it for you in addition to listening to Elvis's latest came out this week and we'll get things started with the new one by Chuck Berry stick around good things happening here on 1488 Collins corner yeah you didn't even talk up the whole bed that's gonna better use it uh I liked when that's when the brass came back and I asked him back in to build those engine cars in that band huh pretty good band yeah well if you want to the next market is same band with the difference that our that's right yeah the shingles were done in Dallas it was a big jingle mill so there you are on the radio now it was that the first time that you really got that feeling that of not power really but hey I'm reaching people that don't know me I don't yeah well surely yeah I mean just by definition of course but the way the way the mechanics of the thing happened I was in this play and Joe Monroe was in it so I said to Joe I say hey Joe I wonder if I could come down and watch you do your radio show because I'm gonna be a disc jockey when I get out of the Air Force and that was my first step being on the wrist so I didn't bought it's owned by comedian and all that I'm gonna be at this jockey and and I'd like to watch a show and pick up some tips and see how you did he said yeah he says come on down I still didn't know I was the owner I got there and watched his show and he went off the air at sundown let's say it was 6:15 that that night it changes it gets later and later as the summer goes on and and he and when the show was over and the station was off the air he said go on in the control room there I'll stay here at the board go in the control room there and the announcer's booth room and read these read some of this news copy and read a couple of these local commercials so I brought him in there and I read them in my best you know assumed announcer voice I was 18 I still had my New York I guess well I had an on regional accent that I had been kind of cultivating since I had the tape recorder but it wasn't perfect I still had some New York vowels that gave me away but I read for him and he liked it well enough that he gave me a job on the spot starting me it was 60 cents an hour which he knew well he knew cheap labor when he saw 60 cents but I'm sorry god I was in the Air Force I was eating free and sleeping free and getting a little money too so it was fine with me I would have worked free obviously the job was weekend's only Saturday and son day and five-minute newscast we had five minutes of news every hour you know 555 music five minutes of news reading the newscast the ones that were not sponsored the sustaining newscast thought they were it was either for the US bonds or join the Navy or some kind of you know drive carefully those kind of things so I learned the weekends reading those newscasts how to read on the air and everything and pretty soon I got a noontime spot where they played nicer music it wasn't top 40 they played kind of like nice music Joe was a musician actually so that's how it all began for me and and I saved all that time I was a I when I got out of the Air Force and I got kicked out a year early oh yeah I say we did we are you keep saying when I got out of the Air Force but the fact is you were kicked out of three high school that's right kicked out of choir kept summer came out to Boys summer altar boys boys go and let's go yeah that's an you here for that's called the hat trick now what well is the terminology of the airforce yes the airforce discharged that was a it was a general discharge under honorable conditions it wasn't a BCD a bad conduct and it wasn't a dishonorable so I got all my pay and allowances but they let me out early because they were looking to cut manpower and they looked in the areas of people who were being less productive than others and I I had I stopped I was in a very elite Maintenance Squadron we had to have the highest IQs going into the Air Force of anyone to get into K systems we ran and and maintained the bomb navigation system they were analog computers and radar systems and and and an optics we repaired them and that was a very advanced system made by a lot of different it was in the Boeing 747 which was the medium bomber and I got out of the maintenance area once I got the job in the Air Force they thought well that's pretty good we got a guy they were doing kind of public relations for the base you know this is good for the Air Force Base to have a guy who's being productive and not just knocking up local girls you know so so I got out of my career field as they call it and because I had I was not productive in their minds and so I could get out 11 months early and I got out at 20 and at 20 I had my GI Bill of Rights and I had three years experience in the field I wanted and I had beat the game yes it's a good start it was a great start let me know that man you can make some breaks for yourself next I was kxo well you met in Fort Worth I met Jack burns in Boston on radio up there but I wasn't suited for that station it was a network station with soap operas and stuff and I went up there because you always want to get to a bigger market when you're in radio the first thing you do is you start recording your voice you start taping to make your tape you start making your audition tape so you can get to a bigger market there's more money more exposures you can move on it's a farm system you know so I wanted to get to Boston I thought well I'll go to that station I had a friend who got me in there the guy was in the sales department and I and I figured well I can make a base there and I can look around Boston for a top 40 station to go to but it never worked out and then but I met Jack Byrnes there we roomed together with a third guy Ron and hit it off very well comedic Lee and I got to lost that job I I got kicked out of there for your taking the news unit the mobile news unit from Boston to New York on the weekend just to buy some grass so you know once the twig is bent you know so grows the tree and there I was but wait a minute you didn't go there because the pot was so good in New York you didn't know anybody in Boston right I didn't know anybody in Boston I wanted to be with my buddies down in New York right so we had we were five of us driving all through Harlem looking for grass because we knew where to go hung 30 50 was the start we had certain stops we could make to buy grass and we're driving around in this thing with it says on the outside this is w e ze NBC News you know and we're looking for grass and we're all we're all like guising on her early 20s so it was a lot of fun but I got fired from there went was out of a job for a while and then I got called down to a Fort Worth we're another guy from radio and in Shreveport had moved on a sales director and he wanted me for their station in Fort Worth so he brought me down there so number one station I got the homework shift 7:00 to midnight took all answered my own phones took all my own requests and dedications and suddenly one day Jack Byrnes showed up from Boston he says he says I'm going out to give Hollywood one last chance at me that was his attitude which is the way to look at things and he his tires were bald so he luckily a news job had opened that day and he got that job and he was my nighttime news man and you know the rest we went down to an after-hours comedy joint which was really a coffee house called the cellar in Fort Worth and we did impromptu sketches every night impromptu skits and two-man stuff and it was so successful we left Radio we said screw this you know we had great jobs we were making like 300 400 a week since 1960 and we're in Fort Worth a good market and we could have gone on from there but we decided to quit radio because we'll go to Hollywood and become stars because we have this filthy act that we did filthy it was just and that those days filthy comedy was not didn't have a market for it at all and there we were how naive but how wonderful when you're in that age period to just get in my newly bought dodge dart pioneer with the tinted windows in the am/fm radio and drive to Los Angeles on spec you know on speculation we had about $300 and we got lucky out there we got lucky I got lucky every time I turned around well when you went out there you got a job at a club yeah we well no what happened was this first we went out there and we were looking to see how we could get into show business we knew we had this act we had written in the daytime we'd write stuff and learning with a terrible so um we would go to places and look at other people and we even hang around Dino's on the strip and figure Frank Sinatra might come in we hung around the Brown Derby one right and Rock Hudson came floating through you know we just we were just using up our money and one day we went back to the apartment and the rest of our money had been stolen out of a sock drawer good hiding place George and we had no money so we thought well gee we hadn't counted on that and we had vowed not to work just to go straight into show business we didn't want jobs none of that bellhop stuff none of that car hop none of that stuff we were we won't go into radio out there but what happened was the only thing we knew was radio the only we really felt we should we deserved was radio the biggest the second biggest market in the country I mean it was sheer lunacy to expect to just get into that market but we went Iraq we went around we went first to KFWB number one in the market top 40 station and they we didn't have tapes or anything they didn't want us you know so we're walking along we see this radio station ke da Y right near Hollywood in vine it's actually at Selma in vine between sunset and vine and Hollywood and Vine we walked in there and that's where my star on the walk is now out in Hollywood I don't I hadn't put it up for another radio station it's kind of nice we went in there and they were looking for a morning comedy team I mean it's just all luck you know you just get lucky and you're on a roll they were looking for guys like us we did a tape for them they loved us they called us the Wright brothers instead of our real names they called us the Wright brothers but it did a big publicity campaign ads and variety full-color ads and everything and put us on the air and here we are on the air about let's see it would only have been about two months after we got there and it was just sheer madness you know there we weren't that wasn't good enough for you no no what we did what we did was still work on the act we're gonna work on the act was this is only a stepping stone you know and now we're making about 500 a week each each you know that's good and we're great but we're practicing this act after hours this was also a daytime station by the way even though it was a 50,000 water and had a big signal out on the west coast it was a day timer and we went off the air at sundown and in the studio we would work on these routines we were getting serious now and nearby about two blocks away was of coffee house that was the way for us to get in they were now coffee houses it was the era of the beatniks and coffee houses liked offbeat entertainment and we knew we could get in there and and do our stuff for the owner maybe and get a shot just get a hootenanny shot get a single shot you know and we went over there he liked us and he hired us for two weeks and we're still rehearsing our act and a guy came walking through the studio because it was an office building and you could see the studios on your left and there were little offices here he was a song plugger he was a guy who used to do PR for songwriters and stuff in record labels and he saw us and he used to be the road manager for Rowan and Martin and he says I think you guys could make it you know so we gave him more we became Matt he became our manager we went in this little coffeehouse they held us over for six weeks Lenny Bruce came in and saws Mort Sahl came in and sauce and based on that more Lenny Bruce we got a contract with GAC one of the biggest agencies in the country they had New York offices Chicago and Beverly Hills offices and we got into nightclubs where we quit radio again we quit recent nights sorry about that we've got something to do and we went on and began a career that worked out very well two years together we were on The Tonight Show with Jack Parr that October we drove out of Shreveport in March we drove out of Shreveport in March and that October we were on NBC television at night on the biggest show for comedic it's just stupid you know but man it can happen [Applause] I've heard this term luck of the Irish yeah started with you I know it well I think the luck comes from heredity you know that's the first draw you get of luck good luck or bad luck Jack Byrnes by the way if you're not always remember went on to do burns and Shriver who you may have seen on that Sullivan Show doing their taxicab taxicab Jack why why that's what they get in the back and he her a ver II was too cab cab cab yeah well you know these commies out there to commies you know he did that character very beautifully and he had a good granny played he played Warren in the when Don Knotts retired from Mayberry RFD he played Warren he was the new deputy and he's had a good career writing and producing things now you went on to become a solo act yeah each of us wanted to eventually become soloist ed Sullivan yeah how in the world did that happen well that's a part of the process as you become known this this was the era of variety television and there were two important syndicated TV shows at that time Merv Griffin and had had a show was 90 minute nighttime show and it was syndicated as opposed to being on a network and so was Mike Douglas Mike Douglas had a daytime show that was syndicated both out of Westinghouse Radio Westinghouse television and I did about 15 Merv Griffin's and I did about 15 Mike Douglass's by the time the network's noticed me that producers for the network the guy who produced the James Jimmy Dean show they got me on there and they did a monologue on there and then they kept me over and I did another monologue the next week and there I was on ABC television and from there I that those same producers did a summertime show the next year it took Andy Williams place on the Kraft Summer Music Hall it was the Andy Andy was on in year-round not year-round but everything except the summer the TV season right and we took his place during the some are calling it the summer musical with John Davidson and I was the house comedian and the writer and from there that's when Ed Sullivan notices you or the Carson people notice you or Hollywood palace or whatever other variety show you were going to get on that was old there were a lot of variety shows then Carol Burnett you know Jimmy Rogers 11 do you remember meeting Ed Sullivan the first oh yeah sure tell me I wasn't saying he's kind of he was he was just what he looked like he was you but he he took a I held out they wanted me on that show Here I am you know still now in my early developmental stage although I was on national television a lot and they wanted me on the Ed Sullivan Show and I resisted because I had heard that they were very brutal with comedians about cutting their time at the last minute you have six minutes they come and tell you to cut a minute because the monkeys went long you know sorry but the baboon went long you're gonna have to cut so I didn't want that because I did I did set pieces I didn't do a series of jokes that I could cut five of them out to take out a minute I did a piece that required that I had memorized that was six minutes long and that was it and he couldn't take out anything so I didn't want them going around doing that to me that would usually happen you know you have dress rehearsal in the afternoon and then you would have the broadcast at night live 8 o'clock and it would happen between dress and air they would tell you to maybe cut a minute and then between air when they started at 8:00 and the time you went on a tour T or something maybe they would come tell you to take out 30 seconds more awesome so it was I didn't want that I was and it was fearful enough doing live television so I finally gave in and I wound up doing 11 Ed Sullivan shows and I wound up really writing some very poor material I mean my standard really fell off because there yah you're offering two more Sullivan shots and the money is great and and you know the exposure is important and you want to you know do that so you know you go ahead and you write a piece and it's not quite what at all yeah but I was surprised going back listing you did the hair poem at one time the one that's a luncheon at the end of the show yeah the hair foam and the thing about the ecology yeah I was surprised they give me any flack about that I mean did you have - no no it was by then that by then I had my beard and I had begun to grow my hair and I had stopped wearing a jacket it was more of a vest look you know it wasn't kind of like street clothes they were a little nicer but they were nonetheless a shirt and a vest you know and at that point they had you know he always accommodated they always accommodated to change that Elvis Presley was on there and the Beatles and in the stones and and they always at least still did an opera singer they still did people juggling play so G Joe but what what I did was uh you know I do they told me I had a choice between two jokes a dress rehearsal I did among other jokes I did two jokes that were topical and they and and one of them was about Governor George Wallace of Alabama who was running for president was a racist and a segregationist and and he had a favorite saying he would always talk about the liberals by referring to the pointy-headed intellectuals he called them pointy-headed intellectuals up there in Washington you know the point he was a popular he appealed to a populist kind of a racist things so he called them poor and I said in this routine I said torment George Wallace I said you talking about pointy heads have you ever seen the sheets those people put over their head so that was one joke that was one joke in the monologue another joke in the monologue was about Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali was the champ at that time his name is still Cassius Clay and he was the champion of the world and they took away his championship because he wouldn't go to Vietnam he refused to go and he was course right to do that I think now what I said about it was this they they they told him you know no more sorry you can't no more but no more boxing you know because you won't go and do your thing in the Vietnam so I said it this way I said Muhammad Ali his job was beating people up that was his job beating people up they wanted him to go overseas and kill people and he said no I don't want to kill people I'd rather just beat him up and they said all right well if you won't go and kill people we're not gonna let you beat them up which was and they they told me during between between dress and hair they told me they said you can have you to the artist censorship I ever experienced they say you can have one or two of one of those jokes or the other but not both it was volume rattling there's the strangest thing so it's obviously I chose the Muhammad Ali job which is far smarter joke you know than the point yet and so that deaths that was my memory of the lay the last show I did and then he went off the air actually I did the second to last Ed Sullivan broadcast although we didn't know it at the time we found out later then you know when he was canceled now here we are into the 60s I'm taking longer than I planned cuz here it's okay there's so many things you're into the 60s you've been getting high since you were 14 yeah 13 and you were going through sorry good these things are important hey here does make a big difference right but but here you are you're 30 years old the summer of love is going on 67 66 everyone who's involved with that he's generally about 20 years old and their parents are 40 years old in the nightclubs I was working and you're in the middle yeah and you're playing to the parents and you made a decision at that point that you were playing to the wrong audience yeah just a a small backstory to that remember the Danny Kaye dream as a child I wanted to be like to Nek so that was what I was pursuing in show business and that's where I had come to that point on the road to dad found out in the interim on the way that I wasn't such a great actor and I wasn't going to be in the movies but I found out I was a pretty good writer of comedy and that I could probably do that and figure that out for you know the rest of my days and let that be my thing with some movies thrown in you know so I got to that period in act and I had dropped some mescaline and some acid has had a lot of my friends and I hung around with mostly malcontent like myself all my life I had been you know y'all get member I got kicked out of all those things because I was I I defied Authority all the time I wasn't in step I was constantly out of step with this society and and the authorities in it and that was my be life my a life was I'm going to be like Danny K which if you think about it is a mainstream path that's something that you do that's a people-pleaser thing you have to learn to please people and go on and get bigger and bigger audiences and become a famous movie star and that's how you do it but I had a be life that I didn't know about that I didn't realize with were that this was bifurcated I had a B life which was [ __ ] all these people you know [ __ ] all these people I don't buy this [ __ ] now that person was being kind of like suppressed without my knowing it I mean I lived it out of my private life of hung out with musicians and their long their hair started to get long and the music started to change in the 60s and the music was protest and I was hearing people who were using their artistic talent to further their ideas and their philosophies on Buffalo Springfield and the Beatles and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez it's over than done think you know that's starting to dawn on me that I'm not using my ability to further these thoughts and ideas that I agree with I have thoughts on that too and I'm not doing that I'm entertaining these businessmen and [ __ ] in these nightclubs doing people-pleaser [ __ ] so I something struck at that time and was probably the acid you know and and I realized that I was in the middle that these people were in their 40s I was entertaining the kids in their 21 kids nothing the people in their 20s were embracing the anti-authority that I had lived so I said well this is where my audience should be and I did I didn't read do I wrote a new act I put a lot of my thoughts and feelings and it became autobiographical that was the first thing that a writer does usually is to write about himself even if it's thinly disguised mine was open I talked about being a athlete being a school kid being a New Yorker and the things that had affected me and that I enjoyed about school and those experiences but during this awakening of yours yeah you fell victim like a lot of us did too when you're doing drugs and whatnot you it's not always conducive to productivity and well if yeah once you get to something that you can't put down right you know I could add a beer in the pot or my lifelong buzz was beer and pot you can put that down you can regulate that you can say okay well today I have to do this start I'll just have about two beers in the morning let's smoke a half a joint and then I'll do that and then I'll get high so that's it but but when you get to things like cocaine or any of the other ones we all know and you get to the addictive drugs it's a different story and that's what happened in the early seventies once I had started my record career one of those one of the fallout things have happened as a result I was Carson he sort of distance himself for me is when you're going through this change when I went through these changes my parents said you know my hair got longer my beard grew and my clothing became closer to the I guess you'd call it the hippie ideal you know and now some people in show business some old you know the old-timer guy not old-timers but the old school people you know they thought that I was making a very crass decision to I heard it from one guy to cash in on the hippie thing that was their way of looking at this from the outside they weren't attuned to the kind of you know pot is a value changing drug it's a hallucinogen it's a mild hallucinogen like acid and it's a value changer and if you smoke from the time you're 13 all the time you're 30 you have formed certain attitudes and this it just reinforced my my malcontents my outsider ship the feeling of being outside and not belonging so these these people had never had that so they couldn't see that there might be some integrity in what was happening to me and they thought well he's just trying to cash in don't worry about it they'll see you through him any of you know you're doing a Bobby Darin Yeah right just going to the mountain and coming back I am different and it doesn't that it took two years for this change to take place physically with the growth of the beard and hair and I did it on television there were syndicated shows I was doing by that time Virginia Graham had a five day a week show Della Reese at a five-day and so did Steve Allen and on these shows in this change period I would explain what what it was that I don't belong in my clubs I belong on the colleges yeah I belong on the campuses the beard would get longer the hair would get longer and by the time two years was up I was there but in the meantime regular show business which I cared very you know little about but Johnny Carson was important that was another platform that I wanted to show mine kind of like new self and they got afraid when they heard about because they thought always on the acid he's on the acid you know and they don't know they don't know what you're gonna do and I and I came in to see Johnny one time and what happened was my wife had redone she had written a press kit that was very kind of telling about my new change my new direction what I wanted to do and I was gonna handle myself and just kind of be my own manager and I had the press kit I wrote a very funny thing about why I was wanted to go to the colleges I want to go to the colleges because you can steal lab equipment and stuff and it was in just a very bizarre letter and I signed it with my left hand like a two-year-old you know and so they saw this at Carson and they thought this guy's [ __ ] hot and they dropped me I had already done probably 10 or 15 Johnny Carson's maybe more than that and they dropped me and I was a year before they could see this others new self take hold get some credibility by virtue of the fact that I was working in coffee houses and filling them and then I did concerts and I filled them and then they said oh okay and they let me back on yeah but you made them state why I shouldn't say was a mistake that's for you to decide but you got all coked up and yeah right in the Johnny's dressing room I went to I went I asked to see I asked to see Johnny in his office oh I asked to come over because I wanted to present my case I wanted but I was full of coke and I was real speedy you know I wasn't Greg back with you and and probably my legs were gone like this you know how many Anna and I had a tie-dye shirt that was really garish and whose are looking you know and he that just confirmed what they thought they'd thrown crook in Christ look at this you know so I had to fight my way out of that by being accepted in the place I said I would be which was you know younger a more I'll call it a more youth oriented culture you know well Johnny obviously no no's talent because you ended up coming back yeah and hosting you you filled in Mosul guest host how many times I don't know must have been 20 times I guess so I've done 140 of those shows counting Jay Leno starting with Jack Paar did you enjoy co-hosting I was out to straight I know it was I enjoyed the status that it gave me and the exposure to talk about whatever other things I wanted to talk about but it wasn't coming and I was loaded on coke on a lot of those shows that I co-host I did one show when I was loaded and David Carradine was Mike it was one of the guests I believe he was on acid that I only just say I believe that I've never asked him he came out in this one of these you know he was in that kind of Far Eastern that pure Sun food thing yeah well this is more like Far Eastern it was it was kind of a diaphanous sort of a flowing white garment you know and he came out and he was sitting there on the couch with his legs in the crossed position up on the couch and I can swear to this day that each time I asked him a question that he was answering the next one yeah that's how [ __ ] up I was and you do have a list of the questions so you kind of know what's next cuz you do rehearse what you're gonna ask but uh I don't know how that would be possible but it seemed like he was doing that house I must try I wonder if there's anyone out of them in eBay land who has an old gun whatever some odd reason boxers old he imagine mr. mrs. America laying in bed watch it yeah as you guys are by the way speed of being coked up the very first Saturday Night Live yeah or the host talked all week and is it did they have to bang on your door and get you to come say they did uh it's it's it's been said to me I Bali I believe it because you do get you know you do lock all the good bolts and things and [ __ ] when you're getting real paranoid you know yeah I did had great coke too and I did it all week and um and I didn't like what I did on the show and I was afraid to do sketches I didn't want it I told Lauren the first day I said don't put me in sketches I'm not good at that I really didn't feel very confident about acting ability and I I didn't know sketch acting is different from acting acting so I didn't make that that accommodation in my mind so I just said leave me out of everything you know just let me do little spots let me do a little monologues 30 seconds a minute and a half two minutes here and all through the show and that's what they did for me they left me out of the sketches but I can see myself I can see meets myself grinding my teeth on that first broadcast if you ever see the DVD watch for the guy grinding his teeth a catchy catching his breath you know kind of like you know I can you till you tell me you had a collection of a videotape collection of you over the years showing your hair different lengths and whatnot I did I must have lied I think what I might have been referring the fact that it you can do that if you hold whatever they give you but the Great Recession well during this time in the 70s with all this you were finding yourself going through these changes you did a couple of movies did car wash the Richard Pryor yeah and you and Richard had work together though before well the way I Jack and I Jack Byrnes and I broke up two years after we formed the act because he wanted to go to Second City and I wanted to be a single I gotten married in the meantime and I wanted to be a single uh and have a for Brenda and I'd have a baby and I had to get out on my own and he we were in Chicago at the time and that was the birthplace of second city and he was very qualified for for improvisational theater very much more qualified for that so we split up we worked that night that we work two weeks at the living room with Vic Damone we made 750 dollars for the team a week and that was a really good level for us great to be working with an act like Vic Damone he was some of you may know or not know a great singer who Frank Sinatra said had the finest pipes of any male singer and he had a string of hit records and a lot of things that were really fine work and Vic we Jack and I broke up the night we closed at the living living room we broke up peacefully and the next night I opened down the street from the living room in the nightclub district at a coffeehouse called the gate of horn I opened up with Miriam Makeba and Peter Paul and Mary and I was the third act I was the opening act and from there I went on Jack went on second city met or you know met Avery Adair and that one became a story and what was the largest fire Oh Richard Pryor well that was a period that began then of two years of drift I did not have a partner I worked out some of the contracts that burns and I still had pending places like the Playboy Clubs I worked them alone but then I never got renewed and I didn't have much work and so I decided in New York after I was married my wife is from Dayton we would stay in Dayton when you know when there was no work in the Midwest and we'd stay in New York at my mother's house when there was no work in the east and I decided that the only way to do this right was to take a stand and that now don't forget I'm still in my clean suit and tie short hair period and I decided if I could get a little place in New York and in the vanished Greenwich Village where I could work out all the time like a coffeehouse and I could develop myself there and get people in can we get Merv Griffin to come in and see me get Carson show to give in and see me that's what I need so I did that I took a stand I found a place called the cafe or gogo I spent two years there on and off I could work and go away from there for two months I could come back for a week I could go away for two weeks come back for three days I could work anything I wanted for they would sometimes five dollars a night sometimes just a hamburger sometimes on a weekend $65 if you were working with Bill Evans or someone like that so I did that for two years and I got Merv Griffin in and that's what gave me my start at the place I'm talking about the cafe au go go Richard Pryor was in the same state I was Richard Pryor was still an unknown comedian who hadn't done any television and he was doing he was in his inoffensive hear his inoffensive period he was in his doing Rumplestiltskin he did a little bug there was a famous Richard Pryor early piece called Rumpelstiltskin that's what got him on the Merv Griffin Show he was down there working out we would smoke some joints up there in the hi staircase in the basement of this place and we would do our bits occasionally be on stage together I don't remember much about that but the the people came in to see Richard Pryor one night from Merv Griffin and they gave him an interview the next week so he got his interview and then I'm still phone laboring laboring laboring there and he gets a show from them and he goes and does the show well by the time he got the show in between his interview and the show I had gotten my interview but then he had his show so I was one step behind him so then he got his second show then I got a pest my interview and I got my first show so the two of us grew out of that room into this syndicated television exposure which was nationwide and was always watched by the networks and that was how the two of us sprung sprung to life one of the good things about the seventies he released those albums with most people here here on XM comedy all the time FM an a.m. class clown occupation fool to lead a window box in fact I believe it was I know if you know but he's yesterday or this week is the 25th anniversary of you told ice clown yeah yeah that's that's nice to know that those were for gold albums I had four gold dogs in a row seventy two three four and five and then I had a couple after that weren't gold it was about what I call the little David years little David Records owned by Flip Wilson and his manager who then became my manager and I was signed to the label and yeah that was the thing you see you need a weight if you're going to do quote-unquote material that should be uncensored you know I hate this designation adult you know or x-rayed or something but if you're going to do realistic spoken word art you need if you're going to get a mass audience you need a medium and the medium at that time was records I certainly couldn't do it on television that was commercial and they didn't allow that kind of language or those ideas if it were if it was just the ideas that were dangerous to them so I got my mass audience through the records the records fed the box office at the college concerts the college constants fed the record sales and it around plus you do some television and talk about both I'll be in Buffalo I'll be in Toronto and I'll be in the agra agra Falls and that by the way fm/am but you did it a little more gracefully than that so the whole thing worked then I ran out of then I ran out of record career you know you can't be the hot new guy in town forever right you can't be the fastest gun because a faster gun is coming to town in a few years so my record career began to kind of wane in the 70s as did the counterculture the disco came in to come into play and the people who are the true hippies and the true radicals they kind of retreated to the hills and the other ones went and got MBAs and stuff like that and and there I was sort of not knowing who I was and who I should become you know to be true to myself so I just drifted a while and that's when cable started that's when HBO started about 75 or 76 and I got on there in 77 and now I've done 13 to them that's my way of reaching the mass audience right who was the first one was George Carlin 77 George Carlin again 78 Carlin at Carnegie Hall 82 Carlin on campus 84 playing with your head 86 what am i doing in Jersey right 88 doing it again 1990 jamming in New York was 92 did that 40 years of comedy special in 96 back in town you are all disease than 99 complaints that got a lot of complaints and grievances in 2001 in life is worth losing in 2005 right I've been told that the jamming in New York was a special one for you well it was you know one of the big turning points you know how I'm an entertainer because I I do I work in entertainment circuit but there's an artist at work too not all that entertainers are artists some are just entertainers and their can they kind of experience life their creative lives in a static way they get to a certain place and they kind of stay there other people who have an artistic element or component grow because artists always grow and go somewhere artists around a journey they don't know where it is going they don't no they don't want to know they just know there's something else there's something more there's more in me there's more to talk about there's more to look at a painter a composer they grow they live they grow it's a it's an ongoing thing so that is true for me as a writer that's the artistic part of me as the writer well what am i answering it you know I'll get to it just tell me you were talking about the HBO special yeah that's right that did socially so the artist goes through the phases and changes and I found my comic voice as a younger person in the coffee houses to found my comic voice and then that comic voice lasted until the late 60s early 70s when I made that change to the countercultural type material that was a shift that was a paradigm shift and that was a change in voice the comic voice and the writer voice and then in nineteen and then through the 70s I developed that and then said then I kind of lost track of what would be next into it I didn't know I kind of drifted and I was grasping then in 92 even though I did these HBO shows and they were plenty good I like him I still would stand behind every word of them but there wasn't a new voice yet there was just like an improved voice that was ongoing in 1992 I discovered silence on the stage I discovered that you could have long periods of silence the show I did jamming in New York had a long more or less serious piece called the planet is fine the people are [ __ ] and and it was about the fact that the planet will outlive us don't worry about the planet people who tell you they're worried about the planet or not they're worried about themselves and their habitat they want a clean place to live and that's fine but don't be talking about how you're gonna save the planet you're not the planet will outlive you and it will heal itself and that piece was very thoughtful and very interesting and I loved it but I had to learn that there were times in the show when I was okay not to get laughs because one of the jobs I have besides getting laughs is to engage the imagination just in general to engage the person's imagination if I make them laugh along the way it's part of the deal for me but I learned then that I had a kind of a more serious writer voice in me and that's when another shift took place and the shows that follow that came in the 90s are representative of that there's more of a social commentator in them there's more of a if you will a quote unquote philosophy beginning to emerge and that was another important shift for me that is still playing out plus it was the first live one it was the first live on it was New York City was the first one done in New York City for me I did it at Madison Square Garden not in the big arena but in the theater there that holds about 6,500 so it was a big audience it was live and it was my hometown and I was king of that town for a night you know it really felt good I looked out my hotel window that night and I thought yeah yeah you know this is my town one of those kind of scenes you'd see in a movie kind of a cheesy scene you a sort of an adult version of when your mother's friends used to pat you on the head no absolutely it was just a graduated version uh I still haven't covered books or movies but I promise to let people ask questions that's going on and on are there anyone here that wants to step up and have a question anybody see this probably they're in awe of you okay yeah you state your name please and hi my name is Alan hi um first of all it's very rare that you get to meet somebody that is an idol of you know and thank you thirty years ago I was introduced to now on that first HBO special that you talked about and I just thank you for 30 years of thank you making me laugh is really um I'm curious about some of the comics that you've worked with who's the funniest that you look back at and you think man that guy is you you knew when you saw him that he was going to be as good as you know you've ever seen well well the one the only one that comes to mind I'm sure if I searched my memory or if I had a better memory I'd have other examples but Lewis Black was someone I saw early in his exposure and I knew this was a unique and strong boys good to say the least so Lewis black I loved him I loved it that that sort of theatrical eyes anger and and the things he talks about his got a good mind I like good minds he's one that I think of I never hung out with comics I still don't I'm a loner I'm a real kind of loner and an outsider I never hung out in comedy clubs and of course I did never worked in them so I didn't need to hang out in them but it also I was just never attracted to that that the comic culture the comedian's and we like to hang out together so I don't have a lot of knowledge I didn't have a lot of occurrences of being able to see someone early and say that butBut Lewis Black was one that definitely sprang to mind Lewis tells a great story Oh CBS willing to do a series based on him and he had to go to audition for the part of himself and he didn't get it haha that's great is it luckily it never made the air so everything that I recall it anyone else sure why not duh last don't wait for the ass just walk up to the microphone wait hi my name's Chris ah you had the chance to see the entertainment industry evolved tremendously over over your career and uh one thing that's I've heard said and whether it's true or not is that if you saw a lot of people who are icons today such as yourself if you started today the way the system is set up you might not get the opportunity to you maybe never would have had the chance to become who you are that's right do you think that's a fair assessment or do you think the entertainment industry in general is improved or it's just changed or gotten worse over your career well depending on the individual that's that's both true and not true I would say with a user-generated content and the viral quality of the Internet that a person who is self-made let's use that for a shorthand a person who wants to be self-made has some avenues that certainly I didn't but on the other hand life and the world and show business were simpler then so it was easier to see where the path ought to be I mean there was there was only one way I was going to get started and that was to get on a radio station and in the midst of having that career going to look around at places where I might have a chance to learn to be a stand-up you know there were some nightclubs and there were some coffee houses so the world and the choices were limited which was probably good for me but I think if I had had the same tools genetically and had them reinforced as they were for me in this era and I had these impulses to show myself off I think I may have found a way but God knows how different it may have been and how much longer it may have taken it's a much more complicated place I don't I don't envy I wouldn't want to come of age at this time although I see some a big a lot of advantages in that we didn't have I see that and I understand that but I'm very happy that I came of age in the in the period I did because it was it was you you could you could grab it you could kind of put your hands on all of it without much effort you know and then now it's a rich pretty elusive pretty fragmented now you mentioned you said I don't give up is the word but you didn't take the movie idea of being a movie star quite as seriously as an actor and you've done movies here and there and you've done the voices and animated films and you were the Volkswagen bus in cars cars for helm are what you Albury so you did you played the Ben Affleck's dad and Jersey girl I was like central that was written for me and I could show my sweet side I Lana Rhett a bit of addressability but but there was a sweetness to the role it was a grandfatherly role it wasn't written on a model of his father and so it was kind of more suited for who I was at the time the other the other thing I'm proud of having done I did a haul mark miniseries called streets of Laredo which was a continuation of Lonesome Dove and it was the authentic continuation it's a business that's continuation that was kind of bogus but this was the authentic one and I did I did a part of an old Scout and I really felt good about that and then Prince of tides I played the gain aber Eddy and I was really happy with the way that came out but I wasn't really born to be an act right if I had trained all my life it would have been a different story if I to learn technique in training yes but III didn't I didn't have the tools I'm Michael hi my mr. Carlin um we know a lot of your comedy comes from things that really piss you off what are some of the things that really piss you off that you haven't really talked about on stage lately well um it you catch me short because I don't have my computer at hand and I can't go look for a lot of stuff I'm blessed with some pretty deep files I do I don't suffer writer's block believe me I got this current show I'm doing I went in there and I dug out the hole 75 minutes all at once and well in it during the a week's time took it all out and began doing the way what you know those 75 minutes from scratch so I'm very proud of that productivity record but I think it's not so much what I'm about because I and implies that you have a stake in the outcome that you care and I don't really care I don't I Phi mean it comes across as anger you know obviously there's a there's a theatrical it's a heightened kind of intensified theatrical anger that you need to convey these thoughts but I'm not personally an angry man I'm not personally angry about these things I think they're they're wonderful because I root against the species I finally I finally came I came to a realization and this freed me as a writer this was part of that transformation in the 90s I realized I didn't really care about this outcome on this planet I didn't care what happened to the species I think this is a species that was given great gifts and had great potential and squandered them I think this vichy squandered them I think it shows poor ways of organizing itself socially and politically I think it made it wrong turn when it came to buying the the okey doke that the spiritual leaders gave the the high priests we turned it over to the high priests and the traders its commerce and religion that have ruined and and and spoiled the potential of this of this species and in this country the same two things are true but this country is written large and this country is the leader in the decay of the soul if you will just I'll use that metaphorically it's just and I just don't care what happens to this country I don't care give a [ __ ] so and you know what the anger the only anger there is then I recognize one in my voice there you know what that is it's really a reflection of disappointment and disillusionment and and being let down by my species you know we had such great possibilities and they're not being realized you know they talk you know about poets and philosophers and well aren't there but yes there are how much influence do they have none there are more people writing poetry in American than there are reading in fishnet well I guess that's true in a lot of fields but it's it's just I think that's the anger it's a frustration it's a it's a letdown you know it comes from you know how could you do it that's why I usually always use the second person you know I talk about the audience and I say how can you know what you did you know I don't say you know we did here in this country I say you know what you people did I put it on them it's not my problem you know so anyway that's just a taste of what eats around the edges for me and if you don't know if you want more of George's philosophy the the books brain droppings napalm silly putty when will Jesus bring the pork chops yes and sometimes little brain damage can help was actually originally a promotional item it was actually a magazine size item to be sold at concerts but I didn't I wanted to put out some material in there so I do pictures in too because you have to have pictures in it it's kind of a it's a pseudo book quasi quasi book so if you want to know more the philosophy was just spill some of it is in there yeah all right just read those books because I would like to end on that note but there's a couple of other questions one of them that you don't like to be asked is have you ever thought about when this is going to end what you're going to retire oh no I don't mind being asked that no it's like I say the artist is never satisfied if you're going to be satisfied you know something's wrong with you if you're part of this highfalutin you know terminology I'm talking about the artist part you know Pablo Casals the great cellist master of the cello of the last century one of the outstanding musicians the last century he he was in his 90s and he was still doing a few recitals and he would practice three hours a day he practiced his cello three hours a day and someone said to him at some point they said master Casals you know you are a past master you are the maestro why at your age do you bother practicing three times a day I mean three hours a day and he said well I'm beginning to notice some improvement and that's the answer I mean why stop you know it only if nature stops me if I lose the ability to write or speak speak some alteration and plans will be necessary but I've already imagined because they do have this for people who are totally paralyzed that the movement of your eyes you can look at a keyboard that's projected and you can type by moving your eyes to the letters and they'll have that perfected by the time I'm paralyzed show me I'm assuming that well to quote George Carlin art doesn't have a finish line now right yeah it's just a race but against yourself with no reward except itself you know sad the satisfaction of explaining yourself in some symbolic form or direct form in my case painting is more symbolic would you leave us with what you would put on your gravestone what's your epithet was the read he was here just a minute ago George Carly thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: zdrux

Views: 3,719,493

Rating: 4.8250866 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: s-clvDxl8qI

Length: 80min 52sec (4852 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 06 2013