The Playboy Interview With George Carlin

I’m sure you missed this interview with George Carlin, which took place back in 1982. I was three years old at the time. Here are the highlights:

It’s the American view that everything has to keep climbing: productivity, profits, even comedy. No time for reflection. No time to contract before another expansion. No time to grow up. No time to fuck up. No time to learn from your mistakes. But that notion goes against nature, which is cyclical.

[…]

…there are some decent star fuckers, but they all want to fuck musicians and movie actors. To be a comedian fucker is like being a juggler fucker. Can you imagine a girl who wants to fuck only the opening act? It’s like watching an animal trainer and then wanting to fuck the chimp.

[…]

There’s a thrill when you steal something in plain view of other people. When you drop a newspaper over a sign and walk away with it, or take something off a wall and the sound of the glue ripping makes people turn around. Your heart is racing, it’s a rush.

[…]

I did a lot of dating.… Well, dating may not be exactly the right word for it. Trying to get laid is a little more accurate. And please notice the word trying. I always wanted and enjoyed sex, but I never put much importance on scoring or having an athletic sex life. I guess I define myself more by my career and my commitment to a relationship than by my ability to have a lot of chicks or achieve ten orgasms in an evening.

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[…]

I don’t like the phrase shock value. Surprise is essential in comedy, and if people are shocked by what I consider merely surprising, then that’s their shock.

[…]

But personally, emotionally, I’d rather divorce myself from the world than face the heartbreak of partial success. Because partial success implies overwhelming failure.

[…]

People become performers for many reasons. Some do it to get a lot of pussy—and that’s a good reason. Some want a bigger car. Other guys want to travel. My reason has always been that I was screaming to let all this shit out of me.

[…]

When I see blacks and women wanting to gain their freedom so they can become corporation executives, I realize that the situation is hopeless. What’s the good of having freedom if you then willingly go off and become a slave to an amoral institution? It’s especially depressing to see blacks wanting to dive into the mainstream of American commercial life. They come from a magnificent African culture based on aesthetics, and now they all want to become fort builders like the vicious people who originally enslaved them.

The interview is over a dozen pages long. Compare that to the softball interviews they give celebrities these days where the point is to offer Disney-esque anecdotes in between promoting the latest movie or album. With all our mega-stars firmly shielded by publicists,  it’s becoming increasingly rare to know the men behind the art.