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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, April 25, 2001



Comedian answers 7 'dirty' questions

By Susan Wloszczyna
USA Today

Comedian George Carlin will receive a lifetime achievement honor during the "American Comedy Awards" tonight on Comedy Central.

Advertiser library photo • 1999

"The American Comedy Awards"

8:30 tonight, Comedy Central (Oceanic 43, Americast 39)

For more than 40 years, George Carlin has refined the art of verbal deconstruction of issues great and small. The cranky comic's jackhammer attack is at full blast in his new book, "Napalm & Silly Putty" (Hyperion, $22.95).

Take the topic of rage: "Road rage, air rage. Why should I be forced to divide my rage into separate categories? To me, it's just one big, all-around, everyday rage. I don't have time for fine distinctions. I'm busy screaming at people."

Indeed. Carlin, who turns 64 on May 12, still roars his way through 80 concerts a year and 13 weeks in Las Vegas. He also is working on a record 12th HBO special, to air this fall. Its title is typically provocative: "I Kinda Like It When a Whole Lotta People Die."

Tonight on Comedy Central, Carlin will receive a lifetime achievement honor during the "American Comedy Awards," joining the ranks of Sid Caesar, Lucille Ball and Milton Berle. As for the trophy, "It's a stumpy Lucite thing," he says. "If you drop it, people laugh. I just might throw it."

To mark the occasion, USA Today's Susan Wloszczyna pays tribute to the comedian's most famous routine, Seven Dirty Words, which refers to two bathroom functions, two female body parts, a synonym for sex and a pair of rude nouns. Here are seven "dirty" questions for George Carlin.

Q. Have the seven dirty words lost their impact now that anyone who pays for HBO can hear them in their own living room?

A. No. It's just that the culture is looser. Some of the fringe words get through now on morning radio or TV. ... They still have impact, especially if used correctly. They are like good seasoning. They have to be in the right place.

Q. Do you enjoy dishing dirt? What do you make of our insatiable need to know all the dirty details about celebrity lives?

A. I think the whole society is more confessional. People will come up to you on the street and say, "Did I tell you how my father beat me?" It comes from that now longtime television culture of people getting on and talking about themselves. The fact that it now extends to celebrities is only natural. Everyone likes to know famous people are (expletive) up. I do.

Q. What do you think about how Washington is attacking dirt in the media?

A. They always look for a scapegoat. If you notice, whenever it is a suicide, heavy metal is blamed. If it's murder, it's something else, like rap. They are diversionary tactics. Japan has greater pornography use than we do, and they have hardly any rape. Rape happens because that is who we are. Canada and Europe show the same movies, but they have less violence. Our national character is such that it wants a weapon.

Q. Which is your favorite of the dirty words?

A. All are useful and equally good. (The f-word) has such variety. It is used as a verb, a noun, an adjective and an intensifier. It has that powerful "k" sound that is also considered a funny sound.

Q. People talk of dirty comedians. Then there are those who are said to work clean. Which are you?

A. I use all the language I need. Not for its own sake, but I use it as color and spice in my stew.

Q. The chapter in your book most focused on dirt is probably the one about our national germ phobia. Do you clean your own house?

A. Not heavy cleaning, but I dust off the area where I'm going to work.

Q. Did you wash your hands today?

A. No. Not at all. There's no reason. Nothing has got on them yet.

Q. Bonus question: Shower or bath?

A. I take basin baths. I sit in the basin like I did when I was a child. It makes me feel good.