NOTES
All direct quotes attributed in the present tense have been drawn from author interviews. Quotes from television appearances are identified in the text, except where noted.
Warm-up
1 “a lawless element”: Constance Rourke,
American Humor: A Study of the National Character
(Harcourt, Brace, 1931), 9.
1-2 “a scofflaw . . . who could be charged with breaking and entering”: Barry Sanders,
Sudden Glory: Laughter as Subversive History
(Beacon Press, 1995), 252-53.
2 “If you’re clothed, you have clothes”: George Carlin,
Brain Droppings
, (Hyperion, 1997), 13.
2 “Every comedian does a little George”: Jerry Seinfeld, “Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder,”
New York Times
, June 24, 2008.
2 “kids, pets, driving, the stores”: Charles Taylor, “Dirty Old Man: George Carlin on Obscenity in the Age of Ashcroft,”
Salon
, April 3, 2004.
3 “The comic comes into being”: Quoted in Rourke,
American Humor,
22.
4 “I found out that it was an honest craft”: Appearance at the National Press Club (C-SPAN), 1999.
4 “I prefer seeing things the way they are”: National Press Club, 1999.
5 “No matter how you care to define it”: Carlin,
Brain Droppings
, xii.
5 “How he stood above and apart”: Terry Teachout,
The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken
(Perennial/HarperCollins, 2002), 35.
5 “the privilege of the dead”: Mark Twain, quoted in “The Privilege of the Grave,”
The New Yorker
, December 22, 2008.
1. Heavy Mysteries
8 He “hid behind the government”: Taylor, “Dirty Old Man: George Carlin on Obscenity in the Age of Ashcroft.”
9 “He had a real line of shit, boy”: Interview, Archive of American Television December 17, 2007.
10 “Let’s get out of here, Pat”: Interview, Archive of American Television
10 “The Irish call it the curse”: Interview, Archive of American Television
10 “We ran for four years”: Interview, Archive of American Television
11 “all these
A
s that I never got in school”:
Carlin on Comedy
(audio recording),
Laugh.com
, 2002.
11 “The thing is, I never really had issues”: T. J. English, “George Carlin Is Still Tossing Out the Good Stuff,”
Irish America
(June/July 2006).
11 “I had to fight her off ”: Interview, Archive of American Television
12 “a man’s salary”: “What I’ve Learned: George Carlin,”
Esquire
(January 2002).
12 “wonderfully alive and vibrant”: Interview, Archive of American Television
12 “Home alone after school”: “Proust Questionnaire: George Carlin,”
Vanity Fair
(May 2001).
13 “a man bored with sinning”: Evan Esar,
Esar’s Comic Dictionary
(Harvest House, 1943), 69, 100, 113.
13
Mad
“was magical, objective proof to kids”: Tony Hiss and Jeff Lewis, “The ‘Mad’ Generation,”
New York Times Magazine
, July 31, 1977.
13 “a way of thinking about a world”: Robert Boyd, “Born Under a
Mad
Sign,”
Los Angeles Times
, March 24, 2007.
14 “That was my family”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
14 “There aren’t any Huck Finns in radio”: Gerald Nachman,
Raised on Radio
(University of California Press, 2000), 212.
15 “You can count on the thumb of one hand”: Nachman,
Raised on Radio,
98.
15 “Fifty percent of what I write”: Nachman,
Raised on Radio,
105.
16 “Our original premise”: Nachman,
Raised on Radio,
125.
16 “I was a hip kid”: Carlin,
Brain Droppings
, 224.
16 “They took things that were nice and decent”: Interview by Marc Cooper,
The Progressive
(July 2001).
16-17 “that one really got my attention”: Interview, Archive of American Television
17 “like a flower [to] the sun”: Interview, Archive of American Television
17 “I was impressed, not that he was an admiral”:
A&E Biography: George Carlin: More Than 7 Words
(2000).
18 “To laugh was to mock heaven”: Barry Sanders,
Sudden Glory: Laughter as Subversive History
, (Beacon Press, 1995), 129.
20 “That was her big thing”:
A&E Biography: George Carlin.
21 “It was called ‘How Do You Spend Your Leisure Time?’”: Sam Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview: George Carlin,”
Playboy
(January 1982).
22 “The older I got, the more apparent it became”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”
2. Class Clown
25 “I’d make fun of the authority figures”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
26 “fly over the area”: Appearance on
Dennis Miller Live
(HBO), January 13, 1997.
27 “a voluntary nigger”: Mark Goodman, “George Carlin Feels Funny,”
Esquire
(December 1974).
27 “They would plant cultures”: Tony Hendra,
Going Too Far: The Rise and Demise of Sick, Gross, Black, Sophomoric, Weirdo, Pinko, Anarchist, Underground, Anti-Establishment Humor
, (Dolphin/Doubleday, 1987), 161-62.
28 “colorful, reachable, human”: George Carlin, “An Old Underdog Finds Himself on Top,”
New York Times
, October 12, 1986.
28 “When my tech sergeant expressed his displeasure”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”
29 “I left my gun on the ground”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”
31 “I grew up with real rhythm and blues”: “George Carlin: How Radio Changed My Life,”
Harp
(September/October 2007).
31 “nothing short of a revolution”: Hendra,
Going Too Far,
169.
32 “I had to play that”: Dean Johnson, “At 55, Carlin’s Sharp Wit Keeps on Cutting,”
Boston Herald
, December 11, 1992.
33 “I was staying at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba”: Dick Lochte, “Natty and the Beanbag: Burns and Schreiber Owe a Lot to a Taxicab,”
TV Guide
, August 18-24, 1973.
35 “one last chance at me”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
36 “the most successful of the new sickniks”: “The Sickniks,”
Time
, July 13, 1959.
36 “Shelley Berman couldn’t do Mort Sahl’s act”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
37 “In my home Westbrook Pegler”: Hendra,
Going Too Far,
163.
37 “At that time George was fairly conservative”: Richard Zoglin,
Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America
, (Bloomsbury, 2008), 22.
38 “How did you two meet?”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
39 “no troublemakers, no queers”: Joe Nick Patoski, “The King of Clubs,”
Texas Monthly
(April 2000).
40 “We became very inventive and creative”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
41 “We’re not gonna park cars”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
41 “the leading Negro and foreign-language station”: John A. Jackson,
Big Beat Heat: Alan Freed and the Early Years of Rock & Roll
(Schirmer Books, 1991), 296.
41 “trying anybody and everybody”: Jackson,
Big Beat Heat,
296-97.
42 “We were insane”: Goodman, “George Carlin Feels Funny.”
43 “We took positions”:
George on George
(interview program), 2003.
44 “He didn’t have a lot of connections”: Archive of American Television interview.
46 “a duo of hip wits”: Hendra,
Going Too Far,
163.
47 “We didn’t know the legendary quality”: Hendra,
Going Too Far,
163.
47 “We felt that was an omen”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
48 “Brenda and I clicked on all levels”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”
48 “a night light to the bathroom”: Jack Paar,
P.S. Jack Paar: An Entertainment
(Doubleday, 1983), 100.
3. Attracting Attention
52 “My mother would say”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
52 “Some really great toilets”: Phil Berger,
The Last Laugh: The World of the Stand-Up Comics
(Morrow, 1975; Limelight Editions, 1985), 138.
54 “We didn’t work very hard”: Merrill, “
Playboy
Interview.”
56 “I can remember doing the supper show”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
56 “Since I have always been able to detect”: Steve Allen,
More Funny People
(Stein and Day, 1982), 104.
57 “I was good and juiced”: Sound recording included in Ronald K. L. Collins and David M. Skover,
The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon
(Sourcebooks, Inc., 2002).
57 “sorta grabbed me by the collar”: Collins and Skover,
Trials of Lenny Bruce,
147.
58 “Someday everybody’s going to know your name”: Appearance on
20/20
(ABC), February 5, 1999.
59 “an extravaganza of patchwork”: Bob Dylan,
Chronicles: Volume One
, (Simon & Schuster, 2005), 10-12.
60 “What kind of place you running here?” Berger,
Last Laugh,
142.
60 “In 1963, the Village was alive”: Richard Pryor with Todd Gold,
Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences
(Pantheon Books, 1995), 70.
61 “You break it down by talking about it”: Collins and Skover,
Trials of Lenny Bruce,
47-51.
62 “It’s one of them numbers”: Collins and Skover,
Trials of Lenny Bruce,
203.
64 “The future seems so precarious”: “The Sickniks.”
64 “I wasn’t very well-educated”: Goodman, “George Carlin Feels Funny.”
65 “Jester and savant must both”: Arthur Koestler,
The Act of Creation
(Macmillan, 1964), 28.
65 “spontaneous flash of insight”: Koestler,
Act of Creation,
45.
65 “The jester makes jokes, he’s funny”: Jay Dixit, “George Carlin’s Last Interview,”
Psychology Today
,
www.psychologytoday.com
67 “Anything that was challenging verbally”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
67-68 “It was a standard fish-out-of-water gimmick”: Interview, Archive of American Television.
69 “I didn’t get a lot of attention”: Interview, Archive of American Television.