Napalm and Silly Putty
Napalm and Silly Putty
??NAPALM AND SILLY PUTTY
ALSO BY GEORGE CARLIN?Brain Droppings
To sweet Sarah Jane,?the keeper of my magic.
? HYPERLINK file:///E:\\Documents%20and%20Settings\\Dom\\Desktop\\1791_NapalmSillyPutty%5B1%5D\\Napalm_body-contents.html \l TOC-1 ??Acknowledgments ?
To begin, I would like to acknowledge those of you who read Brain Droppings. It did better than I expected, and I want to say thanks. By the way, if you havent read it yet, fear not. You can read this first and then rush out to the store to get Brain Droppings. The two are not sequential.
For those who did read the first book, youll find this is the same sort of drivel. Good, funny, occasionally smart, but essentially drivel.
Thanks also to my boyhood friends from 123rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue who listened to my street-corner and hallway monologues when I was thirteen and gladdened my young heart by saying, Georgie, youre fuckin crazy!
Most of all, thanks to my editor, Jennifer Lang, for her patience and support, and for putting these thoughts of mine in order.
Many native traditions held clowns and tricksters as essential to any contact with the sacred. People could not pray until they had laughed, because laughter opens and frees from rigid preconception. Humans had to have tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies lest they forget the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most native traditions is essential to creation, to birth.
Professor Byrd Gibbens,
Professor of English,
University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
From a letter to the author.
Those who dance are considered insane by those who cant hear the music.
Anon.
If you cant dance you fuck a lot of waitresses.
Voltaire
Sometimes gum looks like a penny.
Sally Wade
? HYPERLINK file:///E:\\Documents%20and%20Settings\\Dom\\Desktop\\1791_NapalmSillyPutty%5B1%5D\\Napalm_body-contents.html \l TOC-2 ??Introduction ?
Hi, reader. I hope youre feeling well, and I hope your family is prospering in the new global economy. At least to the extent they deserve. For the next few hundred pages I will be your content provider.
Regarding the title of this book, Napalm & Silly Putty: Sometime ago I was struck by the fact that, among many other wondrous things, Man has had the imagination to invent two such distinctly different products. One, a flaming, jellied gasoline used to create fire, death, and destruction; the other, a claylike mass good for throwing, bouncing, smashing, or pressing against a comic strip so you can look at a backwards picture of Popeye. I think the title serves as a fairly good metaphor for Mans dual nature, while also providing an apt description of the kinds of thoughts that occupy me, both in this book and in my daily life: on the one hand, I kind of like it when a lot of people die, and on the other I always wonder how many unused frequent-flier miles they had.
The only difference between lilies and turds is whatever difference humans have agreed upon; and I dont always agree.
? HYPERLINK file:///E:\\Documents%20and%20Settings\\Dom\\Desktop\\1791_NapalmSillyPutty%5B1%5D\\Napalm_body-contents.html \l TOC-3 ??CARS AND DRIVING: PART ONE ?
Ridin or Drivin?
You wanna go for a ride? Okay, lets go for a ride. Well, actually, youll go for a ride, Ill go for a drive. The one who drives the car goes for a drive. The other person goes for a ride. Most folks arent aware of that. Tell em when theyre gettin into your car. Say, You assholes are goin for a ride, Im goin for a drive. Cause Im the one whos makin the payments on this shit-box.
Gettin in the Car
Now, for purposes of description, youll have to picture my car: an old, poorly maintained, dangerous collection of faulty parts from that wonderful time before safety became such a big goddamn deal in this country. And my car is like any other small carreal hard to get into. Thats important, because, after all, you gotta get into the car first. Otherwise, the way I look at it, you aint goin nowhere.
And lets not forget, with any kind of car, just opening the drivers door and getting in involves a certain amount of risk. Have you noticed that? The terrific way they designed cars so the drivers door opens right out into the middle of goddamn traffic? Jesus! About the only intelligent thing the British ever did was putting that drivers seat right over there near the curb where it belongs. Of course then they
went and moved the curb to the wrong side of the street.
Park like a Man
Anyway, like I said, no small car is easy to get into, but especially if you park the way I do: illegally, two feet out from the curb, on a busy, high-speed thoroughfare right in the middle of rush hour. And that sort of car entry is even riskier if youve got a two-door, and youre tryin to stuff a coupla shopping bags full of groceries into the backseat while everyone else is zippin past you, close enough to smell your breath.
Holy shit! Look out!! Here comes a drunken bus driver! Quick! Abandon groceries! Stand up straight! Squeeze against the car and pull that door as close to your body as you can, taking care of course not to cut off circulation to your feet. Holy shit, that was close! Good thing you went into emergency mode. And be honest, you didnt really need them groceries, did ya? Goddamn! Look at how flat that bus made everything; imagine a flank steak with tread marks. And might that just possibly be potato juice on the ground?