Last Words Read online

  from the base so much, they took me out of my career field as a

  32130E K-systems mechanic and made me a dispatcher. Every other

  night at midnight I wrote up work orders for the next day. It took an

  hour some nights, some nights longer. But once I was done, I could

  leave. Tops I did three hours of work out of every forty-eight, lived

  in my room, kept my bunk area clean. That was all they demanded

  of me.

  I had one more court-martial—in England. We were there for

  ninety days, the whole wing, forty-five planes, every piece of equipment. What SAC often did to prove that they were worth their

  money was to mobilize an entire wing and fly it to a "forward position" like Morocco or England, which were only 1,500 or so miles

  from the godless Soviets instead of 3,500 miles away in Louisiana.

  So they'd save a few bucks on gas.

  6 4

  AIR MARSHAL CARLIN TELLS YOU TO GO FUCK YOURSELF

  While we were in England, the Dodgers, whom I'd loved all

  my life and had never won a World Series, beat the Yankees in the

  World Series. A friend and I listened to it on Armed Forces Radio.

  We were five hours later in England of course, but when the Dodgers won, we got royally hammered. I stagger back to the base and

  it's the middle of the fucking night and I'm still celebrating. The

  barracks chief, the tag sergeant, starts raining on my parade, yelling,

  "Shut up, Carlin!" To which I replied with my standard "Go fuck

  yourself, cocksucker!"

  Gross insubordination. Grounds for my second court-martial.

  So that's two court-martials, and four more Article 15s after the

  first one, in my air force career to date. A grand total of seven major

  disciplinary offenses. Pretty fucking impressive.

  And I still had a year to go. I'd signed on for four years of active

  duty. Then you automatically had to do four years more in the reserves. They had your ass for eight years. But they didn't want mine.

  There were four ways to get out: dishonorable discharge, bad

  conduct discharge, honorable discharge and general discharge. I

  didn't fit any of them. They decided I was something called a 3916,

  which was like a no-fault divorce. A tacit acknowledgment that it

  wasn't working out between you and the air force. You had to meet

  three criteria: One, you'd been out of your career field for two years

  or more. Two, you'd been reduced in rank more than two times.

  Three, you did not plan to reenlist. I fit the profile perfectly.

  The air force let me out after three years and one month, with all

  my pay allowances and all my GI rights. And they didn't want me in

  the reserves. Basically they said: "You don't mention you were here

  and we won't either." An early form of don't ask, don't tell.

  I absolutely beat the game. I was twenty, I had a year and a half of

  radio under my belt, I was clear of all obligations to the military. It

  was just a great feeling.

  So I do have this ambivalence. Obviously I'm against militaries,

  because of what militaries do. In many ways though, the air force

  was unmilitary-like. They dropped bombs on people, but. . . they

  had a golf course.

  I'd conquered the fucking system this whole squadron revolved

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  LAST WORDS

  around. I knew everything there was to know about the K-2 system:

  1,600 pounds of equipment, 41 major components, 370 vacuum

  tubes and close to 20,000 separate parts. I'd learned how not to get

  in fights. I'd learned how to get just drunk enough to get home okay.

  I'd learned how to stay just within the confines of regulation.

  In a way, the air force was the father I never had. It was an allmale entity that took care of me, gave me a room of my own, fed me

  and helped get the childhood part of me finished. It brought me to a

  place where I could step off into my life and career and rejected me

  at just the right moment.

  So I want to thank the Pentagon, the Soviet Union and the

  military-industrial complex from the bottom of my heart. Without

  them, I could never have become the man I am today.

  6 6

  6

  TWO GUYS

  IN THEIR UNDERWEAR

  The most important milestone in my early career was meeting

  Jack Burns at WEZE in Boston in 1959.

  After the air force and I parted ways, I continued as a deejay

  at KJOE back in Shreveport for a few months. But I wanted to be

  nearer New York and in a larger market, and when one of the guys

  from KJOE moved up to Boston, I asked him to get me a spot there,

  no matter what kind of station it was.

  WEZE was a far cry from KJOE. An NBC network station, they

  still carried soap operas, quiz shows and other antiquated programs.

  I got on the air as a board announcer, doing live copy and running

  the board when network came in. I did have a two-hour music stint

  late at night but I had to play shit like Sinatra, Vic Damone, Keely

  Smith and Louis Prima.

  Jack was a newsman at the station. He and I hit it off immediately.

  We both did much the same Irish street character—who later became my Indian Sergeant and all the other Sergeants he spawned.

  Jack's version was a Boston-Irish bigot who later became famous in

  his classic taxicab routine with Avery Schreiber.

  Jack's guy had more of an edge. My guy had a more human side

  to him. These two guys would talk together for hours. They were

  great characters for saying things you weren't quite willing to say

  yourself. Jack and I found ourselves being very inventive in each

  other's company. We thought fast on our feet and struck up a great

  friendship. Even dreamed a little about doing a comedy act. ..

  Then, as usual, I got canned.

  6 9

  LAST WORDS

  I caused two major crises at WEZE. The first was the Cardinal

  Cushing Rosary Incident. In 1959 Cardinal Cushing was a big deal

  in the Catholic Church and, being very close to the Kennedys, an

  even bigger deal in Boston. Every evening from 6:45—7:00 he said

  the rosary on the air and was a longtime favorite of the CatholicIrish faithful.

  So I'm riding the board and Cardinal Cushing is in his palace

  or wherever the fuck they live. He's on remote—a phone line. This

  evening he's doing the Five Sorrowful Mysteries. Before he began

  the rosary he would always say a little something about life in the

  Boston archdiocese. This evening he starts in about the Little Sisters of the Poor. "The Little Sisters of the Poor have been working

  selflessly for years in the Boston wards where children with chronic

  diseases. . ." He gets carried away by the wonderful saintly Little

  Sisters and starts the Five Sorrowful Mysteries late.

  Now seven o'clock is creeping up and His Eminence is only at

  the Third Sorrowful Mystery. ("The Crowning of Our Lord with

  Thorns," for those who care.) I'm faced with a major executive decision. At precisely seven o'clock an Alka Seltzer-sponsored newscast

  is due from the network. Alka-Seltzer and NBC versus Cardinal

  Cushing and the last two Sorrowful Mysteries? A no-brainer. I lower

  the cardinal's pot. He's off the air.

  The news comes on with that little NBC jingle. Not a minute
>
  goes by before the phone rings and I hear a voice of thunder: "I'd like

  to speak to the young man WHO TURNED THE HOLY WORD

  OF GOD OFF THE AIR!"

  Apparently he had a fucking air-check monitor in his ear and

  he'd heard NBC News coming in. I said: "Cardinal Cushing, this is

  George Carlin. I'm on duty. I have a log to follow and the F C C . . ."—

  you know how you go for everything in a crisis situation—"This

  is a Federal Communications Commission regulation I have to

  follow . . ."

  The station backed me up, but it was a huge black mark. Crisis Number Two—the News-Unit Incident—was even huger and

  blacker. Several times, on weekends when I needed to score pot, I'd

  taken the station's mobile news-unit, a vast boat of a station wagon

  7 0

  TWO GUYS IN THEIR UNDERWEAR

  stuffed with equipment and gaudy lettering along the side reading

  "WEZE 1260, News of the Moment!' and driven it to New York.

  This particular weekend, there were about six or seven of us,

  crowded in with the equipment, driving through Harlem looking to

  score. Everyone knew someone: "Let's go see if Paco is around 111th

  and Madison." No dice with Paco, so now it's "Georgie, Georgie, I

  know, Santos! Let's try Santos!" and off we cruise to 145th and Amsterdam. All over the city in a huge fucking car with huge fucking

  letters on it, trying to score illegal drugs. Great PR for NBC News.

  When I get home there's a call from the station manager in

  Boston. He says: "Guess what? We got a prison break at Walpole

  State Prison. Started last night. We couldn't find the news-unit. I

  assume you have it?" "Yeah, I got it. It's fine!" "Well, it's not doing

  us any good down there in New York." I said, "They have a shitload

  of prison breaks at Walpole. There'll be another within a month.

  Don't sweat it."

  He didn't appreciate that. Sayonara, George.

  KXOL, the number one station in Fort Worth, took me in and

  gave me a great spot: the seven-to-midnight segment doing Top 40.

  The "homework shift," they called it: kids doing their homework

  and listening to the number one station playing all the cool records.

  Before long I got to be a bit of a local celeb so I had a lot of contact

  with those kids. And for the first time I got a whiff of that unnamed,

  unspoken, unformed conspiracy of the young against authority and

  old rules that seemed to be fermenting in the heartland. In Fort

  Worth, of all places! ("Cowtown! 'N proud of it!") At sock hops you

  could see the degree of influence black music and dance had had,

  even on these white—basically segregated—Protestant kids. They

  were trying to learn cool moves even if they weren't doing them as

  freely as their role models.

  Then after about six months at KXOL, who comes floating in the

  door one day but Jack Burns.

  He'd quit WEZE, while doing the early morning news with a

  massive hangover. The station was in the old Statler hotel, which

  had long windows like the Today Show does now, through which

  the public could peer in and be part of the exciting world of radio—

  7 1

  LAST WORDS

  like newsman Jack Burns doing the early morning news. In the middle of reading the headlines Jack looks up to see an old wino pissing

  on the window right in front of him. If there were no glass he'd be

  pissing on Jack.

  And Jack thought to himself: "I do not want to be pissed on while

  delivering important news of the day." And quit.

  Now he's on his way to Hollywood, "to give them one more

  chance." But he's broke and his tires are bald and he's taken a detour

  to Cowtown to see if I could find him work.

  In more ways than one it was something that was meant to be. A

  guy had just quit our newsroom without notice and they were looking for a newsman. Authoritative, knowledgeable newsman Jack got

  the job on the spot.

  We picked up right where we'd left off (as did our Irish alter egos),

  and started rooming together. And Jack resumed his steady radicalization of me that he'd begun in Boston.

  In my home, Republicanism was a given. Both my mother and

  my aunt had worked for William Randolph Hearst and were terminally infected with the Westbrook Pegler-J. Edgar Hoover-Joe

  McCarthy virus. My mother was always happy to proclaim that

  while her dad had been a lifelong Democrat, she'd become an

  Eisenhower Republican.

  Part of the reason was that she rubbed shoulders with big business, working as executive assistant to Paul B. West, the president of

  the Association of National Advertisers, a lobbying outfit for the advertising industry. (She was his executive assistant, not his secretary.

  No taking dictation for Mary.) She was on first-name terms with

  the marketing chiefs of big corporations like Philco, Ford, General

  Motors, General Foods, General Electric, U.S. Steel. She loved to

  throw their names around. And had taken on board their Republican beliefs lock, stock and barrel.

  Then there was McCarthy. In 1954, between high school and the

  air force, when I briefly worked at Western Union, his Senate hearings were really boiling. Because of what I'd absorbed at home I was

  very pro-Joe. I was surprised at how many of the WU managers—

  who'd come up through the union ranks—were not. Nonetheless,

  7 2

  TWO GUYS IN THEIR UNDERWEAR

  after I left home, I continued to assume his ravings were correct. Of

  course there were Communists everywhere! And if you were commies wouldn't you try to get into the State Department?

  These feelings (rather than opinions) weren't really part of my

  overall personhood. My mother had simply grafted them on to the

  personality of an outsider and rebel.

  At WEZE I still had that conservative graft. It would come out

  on air sometimes. On one particular occasion Jack called me on it.

  I can't remember why I did this on an easy listening station in an ultraliberal town—some news event must have provoked it—but right

  in the middle of the Mantovani-style music mush I issued a call for

  the preemptive bombing of Red China.

  When I came off the air Jack was waiting for me. He said: "How

  the hell did you work nuking China into an intro for Andre Kostelanetz?" I had no idea what he was talking about: it seemed normal

  enough to me. Jack said: "Let's go get a beer. There's some things I

  gotta talk to you about."

  From Jack I heard a very different slant than the one I'd grown

  up with. That the Right was interested in things but the Left was

  interested in people. That the Right defends property and property

  rights, while the Left fights for civil and human rights.

  Jack turned me on to Castro, who'd recently ousted the Cuban

  dictator Batista. Jack had been in Cuba back when he was in the

  Marines and "just another right-wing Irish reactionary" (like me),

  but after the revolution he'd gone back and been really impressed

  with Castro. He even interviewed Castro when he came to Boston, one of the first English-language interviews Castro gave in the

  United States.

  I began to realize the error of what had been handed to me

  through the Catholics, the Irish, my mother, through the Hearst

  lega
cy in our family. It didn't take much reasoning. It immediately

  struck a chord. Of course that's how I feel! Of course I'm for the

  underdog! Of course it's right-wing business assholes who've been

  keeping me down! The first time those doors opened for me was

  thanks to Jack.

  We started going to a coffeehouse called the Cellar on Houston

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  LAST WORDS

  Street where you could get drinks even though Fort Worth was dry.

  In white Protestant Texas Cowtown, a bunch of beatniks at an allnight coffeehouse with illegal alcohol was really living on the edge.

  (There was one guy there who wore a blanket and an eagle on his

  shoulder. A fucking eagle!) These were Cowtown's outcasts. That

  was attractive somehow. All food for these new feelings.

  One night we got up and started riffing on the bits we'd played

  around with at home, letting our Irish guys talk, improvising on the

  floor. We heard laughs, amazing, real laughs. And that was the beginning. The genesis of everything that came afterward. The first

  time I ever stood up in front of an audience of complete strangers

  and intentionally made them laugh. There is nothing like that feeling. Nothing. Nearly half a century later it's still as powerful as ever.

  We continued to get up at the Cellar and continued to get laughs.

  And a great deal more confidence. Some of it was because we were

  local favorites from the radio. But we were also doing these things

  with great abandon. The Cellar was our gymnasium, our laboratory.

  It belonged to us. And it allowed us to develop an expansive onstage

  collective personality, which in turn led to taking chances.

  JB: Hi, kids, it's time for Captain Jack . . .

  GC: And Jolly George!

  JB: What a show we've got for you today, kids. Remember yester-

  day on cartoon time we l e f t Clarabelle the clown and Hermie

  the hermaphrodite all hung up in the back room? What were

  they trying to do, kids? That's right—hide the booze before Clar-

  abelle's Mommy came back!

  GC: How about you, kids? Manage to get the booze hidden be-

  fore Mommy staggered home? Watch out: Mommy don't wanna