The way we can air this material today without bringing down the Pacifica Radio Network and every single station that she says to air this program but we can hear the program beeping every single word that George Carlin said was too dirty to say on the air and even a couple more just to be on the safe side. As we were. Through the remaining. Mile and simulators just in the Morial church and in the mileage run of. The. November 28th 1973 to the Federal Communications Commission Washington d.c. Gentleman on October 30th in the early afternoon from approximately 1 30 pm to 2 30 pm while driving in my car I turned to radio station w b a I in New York City I heard among other obscenities the following words. And a whole list of others this was supposed to be part of a comedy monologue. Where as I can perhaps understand an x. Rated phonograph records being sold for private use I certainly cannot understand the broadcast of same over the air that supposedly you control any child could have been turning the dial and tuned into that garbage some time back I read that topless radio stations were fined for suggestive phrases if you find for suggestions should not this station lose its license entirely for such blatant disregard for the public ownership of the airwaves. Can you say this is a responsible radio station that demonstrates a responsibility to the public for its license I'd like to know gentleman just what your going to do about this outrage and by copy I'm asking our elected officials the same thing. Incidentally my young son was with me when I heard the above and unfortunately he can corroborate what was heard yours truly John h. Douglas New York City copies Senator James Buckley Senator Jhumpa story morality and media I happen during the program to be discussing the power of words and the way words are used w b a our producer Paul Gorman happened that I remember to be discussing the way in which political dialogue at that time and certainly in years before that in the sixty's and early seventy's that political dialogue was doing great damage to words in my view and that the power of words and the importance of being careful about words and that the integrity of words was being lost and I remember raising for example of the fact that if you looked on either side of the great political struggle of that age if you look to the government you heard for example the Central Intelligence Agency interesting words in themselves use the words extermination with extreme prejudice to describe killing somebody or talked about national security that the bombs that were being dropped on Vietnam at the time were being dropped by an agency of government which describes itself as the Defense Department etc etc etc There were many other examples of protective reaction the strike was what bombing people's heads and killing them was described as one could find the same thing among those people who are opposing those very actions by the government the most immediate example that springs to mind at that time was the phrase that off the pig. Which seemed to me not to be so different in its moral effect then extermination with extreme prejudice not being able to sing kill not being able to say person but off the pigs and loose uses of the word revolution etc etc So the discussion was about the power of words and the moral consequence of words and the fear we have of words and the way words arise from the culture and the way the culture redefines itself through its use of words that was roughly the topic of the program and was being conducted by myself and by listeners who were calling in the lives spontaneously that was also being supplemented I should say by various readings of authors who had talked about words principally some excerpts of essays by George Orwell inevitably the topic came to what we called dirty words and the discussion turned on the issue is there such a thing as a dirty word or are there just dirty actions or dirty deeds and so we move inevitably into the area of indecency and obscenity and one color I think I remember calling up and say why is it that the word or a word that's used describe the act of love is also used as an insult so we discussed what the f.c.c. Now is trying to describe indecent words at that moment there was just perfect appropriateness of a monologue by George Carlin in Title 7 dirty words you can't say on television I think with the title and artistically. It was a moment where that had to be played into the overall effect of the program and it also rode just in a different way than I had been raising them in a dramatic way and even even in a provocative way which I understood and even introduced what we call a disclaimer which is letting people know that they might hear some words they would find offensive but nevertheless was raising that issue in a different way than had been raised in the course of the program in a dramatic way by the repetition of those words by making people listen and laugh and the little whenever hypocrisy and double standards and confusion lies between the use of words and the actions they describe this is the word they were. Leads a double life the word 1st of all it means sometimes those that are what it means to make love right really make love is going to. Make love right I also means the beginning of life it's the act that begins life so there's the word hanging around with words like love and life and yet on the other hand it's also very that we really use to hurt each other is you know it's a heavy it's one that you save toward the end of the argument. While you can make. The. The thank you from the conclusion to the declaratory order issued by the Federal Communications Commission February 21st 1975 the commission concludes that words such as. And depict sexual and excretory activities and organs in a man are patently offensive by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium and are accordingly indecent when broadcast on radio or television. I don't think the f.c.c. Should have any power over what words are used on the radio but I should also say that I respect the fact that there are people in the audience and in the community who find certain words offensive and would not want their children to hear those words for an example if. One of you listening right now to me were walking down the street with your 6 year old son or daughter and you passed a group of teenagers for whom dirty words was a kind of a way of asserting your masculinity if they were all boys and you didn't want your daughter our young son to hear those words the 1st thing you would do would take them by the hand and cross the street and take them out of earshot I respect the rights of people to see dirty words has a moral question and that's that a question and an issue of upbringing you know and I wouldn't for minute deny their right are I wouldn't per minute disrespect them and that's why that disclaimer. But I think those people who are concerned with that have to ask themselves the question Who should determine whether those words are going to be used should there be a body of people appointed by the president of the United States subject to all sorts of political pressures who sit in judgment of words trying to determine whether one word which means the same thing as another word can be said Why is it possible to say one runs in the other so the power in my view should not rest with the f.c.c. The power to grasp with the community community has the right to among other things withdraw commercial support from the station that uses words that the community itself finds objectionable the community has the freedom to take its own actions and make its own complaints but as for the Absi see you should not tell the people what they should say nor should they tell them what they should hear the people who have the right to define their own culture and then we are increasingly in a situation where culture is being imposed on the people whether it be role models and stereotypes whether it be added to the torrents authoritarianism and violence images of gender and so forth increasingly we're in a situation where the people are not defining their own culture. And that in what I would call warm really going through imperialism by dropping to him call the commercial media and. Politically he would stay in all of this and whether or not the people through their own instruments in this console listeners sponsored non commercial radio station are going to have the opportunity to define their own culture language Roods one of the principal instruments of the culture is this particular instance former f.c.c. Commissioner Nicholas Johnson commissioner from 1966 to 1973 out of the city of New York City and with a vast audience of w b a r you've got what one letter of complaint on this program that presumably is not enough to to warrant keeping the program off the air because. I decided not to program something it is a form of censorship whether or not you want to use that pejorative word but I mean deciding that something cannot be broadcast on the air. Is a really pretty darn heavy decision now there will be times when presumably you'll arrive at that decision. But are you going to do it on the basis of of one outrage . Probably not. What if instead of having one letter you've had a petition signed by 500 people what if it were 5000 at what point does. You know do you have enough public involvement. At the station really should respond to it well there is no easy way of answering. The following organizations have filed either jointly or separately and because briefs in support of w.b. I Pacifica. National Association of Broadcasters national radio Broadcasters Association c.b.s. N.b.c. A.b.c. The Public Broadcasting Service Reporters Committee for Freedom of the press radio t.v. News Directors Association Committee for open media the Writers Guild of America the Motion Picture Association of America the authors legal Sierra and the American Civil Liberties Union in addition to this list the Justice Department has chosen to assist in ongoing our case before the u.s. Supreme Court the Supreme Court will have to cite basically here when cries now lawyer for the National Association of Broadcasters whether radio and television are so different from newspapers magazines and other forms of communication cloning film that they justify more extensive regulation on the theory that radio and television are more powerful more intrusive more coming into the home harder to turn off the w.b. Ai case that is kindly misunderstood because a number of people who have heard about the case I know where the facts the case involved as far as the facts here is and noncommercial educational station carrying a public affairs program to an adult audience on a week day afternoon at a time when children are less likely to be in the audience talking about the use of words and using humor and sad sorry to illustrate people's reactions to certain where it seems under these facts is that the station in no way is appealing to period interest without any redeeming social value from the King James Version the Bible fact of 934. The Howard Hughes who were formerly known as are Johnny said all real chariots So more and more also do God unto the enemies of David if I leave all that pertains to him by the morning light any that against the wall 2534 surely there had not been left and unable by the morning light any that against the wall 1st kings 1410 2nd Kings 98 will cut off him that against the wall to King Day 227 Isaiah 3612 hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall that they may eat their own dung and drink their own with you Isaiah 3212 they show lament for the. For the pleasant fields and for the fruitful vine is equal 233 and they committed whoredoms and Egypt they committed whoredoms in their youth there were their breast pressed and there they bruise it with their virginity and is equal 2321 thus the colors to remember and the lewdness they youth in bruising they by the Egyptians for the perhaps of the youth. I think the vibe that those kinds of passages from the Scriptures. Are forbidden to be spoken on public radio is a testimony to the ludicrousness of these laws that they would cut out so much of great literature among which the Bible and its passages for example if you take the word. Which is comes from the old English Ferrari which is to tuck into the ground the farmer tuck the seed into the ground now if you understand it like that and yet it's such a horrible thing that we talk about you know and we don't want to say and front of our children rather than telling our children it's derivations and what it means the word when it is you to use an epithet and not and not understood to be the word is so I thought of it when the mind that's where a lot of the stuff is in the mind my own feeling about obscenity is that that when we confine obscenity only talk about those things which have to do with nudity or with sexual intercourse or any of those kinds of matters and do not see obscenity in a larger framework and that is those pictures and those situations being obscene I mean for example words that are obscene the word nigger you know coming from the lips of a Bull Connor's in hatred against black people who are demonstrating in the south that's an obscene word even if that definition of obscenity were in here to in this country that was declared to be what was obscene rather than what we now to clear up sing. I still would not countenance or want to see any Kerryn of censorship those words and pictures when you start down that road no matter where you start. It's going to end up with somebody else behind me with you. Were. Really really amazing. And in. The me. At the time of this documentary the case was on its way to the Supreme Court it was argued on April 18th in 1978 and decided on July 3rd of the same year the court overturned the lower appeals court decision in the end rejecting Pacifica's arguments saying the f.c.c. Seth already to prescribe this particular broadcast is not invalidated by the possibility that its construction of the statute may deter certain hypothetically protected broadcasts containing patently offensive references to sexual and excretory activities as well the opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens went on to say the 1st Amendment does not prohibit all governmental regulation that depends on the content of speech the content of respondents broadcast which was vulgar offensive and shocking is not entitled to absolute constitutional protection in all contexts it is therefore necessary to evaluate the f.c.c. As action in light of the context of that prog cast the opinion ended simply enough with this we simply hold that when the commission finds that a pig has entered the parlor the exercise of its regulatory power does not depend on proof that the pig is obscene the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed. And here is the original excerpt from George Carlin filthy words monologue that aired on w.p.a. I on October 30th 1973 they want to say something about words that I I think it's important I love what I say they're my work and my play they're my passion and words are all we have really we have thoughts but thoughts are fluid you know. What . And then we assign a word to a thought. And we're stuck with that word for that thought so be careful with words I like to think you know the same words you know that hurt can heal and it's a matter of how you pick them there are some people that aren't into all the words or some people would have you not use certain words you know there are 400000 words in the English language and there are 7 of them you can't say on television what a ratio that is 399990 3 to 7. So you must really be bad. You have to be out rageous to be separated from a group that law. All of you over here you 7. That's what they told us they were remember that's how bad. You know bad words bad thoughts bad intentions and words you know the 7 don't you that you can't say on television. Those are the heavy 7. Those are the ones that will infect your soul. Of years. Keep the country from winning the war. And doesn't even belong on the list. Such a friendly sounding word. Sounds like a nickname rattle. Me to it still it. Sounds like a snare doesn't it well. I know it is right. I don't mean your sexists neck I mean new Nabisco. A new cheese. Pizza sesame. Tater. She can be just look. Here I use the switch. But I mean that word does not go. And Louis. Actually none of the words below are on the list but you can understand why some of them are there and I'm not completely insensitive to people's feelings you know I can dig why some of those words got on the list like those are. Heavy weight you're. So lucky or learn. Besides the literal translation and the emotional feeling I mean they're just busy murder. There's a lot of syllables to contend with in those cases those are aggressive sounds they jump out at you. Like an assault on you know. So I can do it now. We mentioned earlier of course and 2 of the other 4 letter Anglo-Saxon words are which go together of course but. Little accidental humor and throwing. The reason they are on the list is that alone time ago certainly he said those are the 2 I'm not going to say. I don't like. What's led to such stupid sentences as Ok you are going to take. Us . There of course the words. The words I don't really well it was more action than him I don't really want to get into that now. Because I think it takes too long. But I do mean that I mean I think the word is a very important word it's beginning of live in. Yet it's a word we use to hurt one another quite often and people much wiser than I have said I'd rather have my son watch a film with 2 people making love than 2 people trying to kill one another and I have of course can agree it's a great sentiment I wish I knew who said 1st and I agree with that but I'd like to take it a step further I'd like to substitute the word for the word kill in all those movie cliches we grew up with right Ok sheriff with. Us Were it were. But will go to. Were. So maybe next year I'll have a rap on that I learned I was. There are 2 way words those of the 7 You Can Never Say on Television under any circumstances you just cannot say them ever ever ever not even clinically you cannot weave them in on the panel with Doc and Ed and Johnny I mean it's just impossible forget those 7 they're out but there are some 2 way words those double meaning words never the ones you giggled at in 6th grade and the cock crowed 3 times over the course road for dollars or her heard some of what I've heard. There are some 2 way words like it's Ok for Curt Gowdy to say Roberto Clemente has 2 bottles in a little. But he can say I think you've already been that way talking about your it was probably going to be busted heard about it was. Were it was. And the other 2 were that goes with that one. It's Ok if it happens to your finger . Yes you can pick your finger but Goldfinger your. God were and that does it for this week's from the vault. From the vault is a weekly series produced written and edited by Christopher sprinkle and executive produced by the Pacifica Radio Archives and Brian de chaise or for more information on how to purchase a copy of this program or any of the archived materials we used to go online and from the Vault Radio dot org or call the Pacifica Radio Archives at 187350230 from the vault is presented as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives preservation Access Project which is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the arts and grants from the Grammy Foundation the Ford Foundation University of California Berkeley Moffat library the Pacifica Foundation and from contributions from Pacifica station listeners thanks to the Pacifica Radio Archive staff and special thanks to Karen and knowing in our volunteer for this week's show from the vaults theme music is by Kevin Drum holiday I'm dying to chaise or thanks for listening. To a. Saying This is from the vault remembered the Pacifica Radio Archives weekly program that brings our history out of the vault and onto the radio Hi I'm going to Shea's or this week we're focusing on 7 dirty words and George Carlin he was the man who gave the monologue about those words and Pacifica was the network that broadcast his monologue this resulted back in 1988 in stricter rules around language indecency on the airwaves and is a battle that still goes on today just think of nipple gate and Janet Jackson. And this half hour we will hear from George Carlin himself in excerpts from 2 wonderful interviews he gave one in 1970 before his filthy words monologue was broadcast on w b a I and the other was conducted by Larry Bensky at k.p. If a in June 1997 nearly 30 years after together they provide a time lapse view of one of the more controversial and brilliant comedians this country has this interview was called comedian in transition and was conducted by Alan Farley at the Playboy Club in San Francisco in December 1970 it originally aired on k p f a in February of that year. Maybe this is a corny question but are there any comedians who influenced you or we are you know people who really dug when you were young Yeah I know you have like different sets of them my 1st set comedian. And influenced me I think. Were like Danny Kaye. In the movies. Spike Jones on records the Marx Brothers in the movies then Martin Lewis and that starts a new era of I was a little older Martin Lewis and then that leads into like Ernie Kovacs Bob and Ray . And then that leads into Jonathan Winters Lenny Bruce Morton Saul Lloyd Buckley there are there are a lot of guys that that don't do it especially inventive or great original comedy that I like because they make me laugh too you know I mean I kind of tend to want to hear new things and guys that are really doing something different and saying some but I'm also an ordinary human being who last a funny things when I'm good comic gets on so there are guys like that to do it you know but let me let me Bruce and Mort Sahl were very influential early on when I had a partner Jack Burns who later went with every fiber Oh yeah right well Jack and I had a team and more help to get us started and Lenny helped us Lenny Goddess' our 1st agency contract nice to do impression of Lenny and more than the act 10 years ago I did my Lenny and more and they came in to see and so they helped us a little and I kind of tried to stay in touch with Lenny and knew him a little bit I know his mother a little better I think Sally she's funny and they always have a strong influence I always felt that that was eventual what I'd like to do even while I was abroad I was detoured into the other thing I was trying to find out and test the limits and see how much t.v. Would let me do where they let me go would they give me my show. And no I've come around to where I can at least talk about some of the same subjects more than when he talked about and I'd love to accomplish some of the things that Lenny set out to accomplish that is to make people more comfortable with themselves that's really all the I think in and I wear a lot of that has happened oh and it's such a shame that Lenny didn't just arrive at this period now the 68697 certainly in San Francisco. From what I've seen at least there's not the taboo about words all right which And people don't get arrested for saying things wrong like he did. Did you did you grew up in New York you from the Upper West Side of Manhattan Brown Harlem Columbia University Juilliard good influences good childhood vibes lot of good people kind of people. Strong funk. And we were into. So of the agriculture situation which is only recently you know I was I was a teenager in 52 it's in 52 I was 15 years all and I had smoked grass 2 years before that so there was trying to say as I was a neighborhood that even though it was that long ago the neighborhood was into into grass I'm happy to say. And what. Where did you. Get high school could high school at 17 I really I wanted to be an actor comedian imitator I didn't know what I knew that this jockeying could help me get there my mother had got me a tape record and I worked with a lot and I really dug production and and speaking you know and I quit high school so that I could again the same kind of reasons that you hear about today man it was it was irrelevant it was boring and I was I was beyond much of the work and that was it was had nothing to do with the world I was going into and so I left a man and I went the Air Force figuring when I got out at that time of course you didn't shirk your your draft thing yet unfortunately that wasn't part of the thinking of young people at that time to me what I was doing was getting my Air Force over so they wouldn't draft me at 22 that was a problem in New York that so many cats that you didn't get drafted until 22 or 3 right when you were getting you know so I wanted to do it up and get it over with I went to Air Force My mother signed me and instead of having to wait till I got out to go on the g.i. Bill for this jockey school I found a station while I was in that let me work down in Louisiana I worked off base at a number one top 40 station so I was I was 18 when I started my job career and I still stayed 2 years in the Air Force I got a lot done at the same time I I when I got out I was 20 and I had 2 years in radio and I had my service obligation out of the way as we called it was a funny phrase my service obligation anyway and then the disc jockey ing was for 4 years and that led to meeting a guy in radio Jack Burns funny cat and we were we were funny together so we said hey let's do a team and we did that for 2 years and then I became a so. On 62 at the moment. Is the biggest problem and in America that an unfair question it's I guess it's very the biggest problem is that the use that's all the the newer kind of human beings that are being born during this technological Rush are indeed newer types of human beings and their values are different and is a real terrible clash because so many people are still alive from the other is a change came so quickly in technology and what has happened to the planet and the people that there are now at the same time alive people with vast different experiences that used to hold many lifetimes would go by before father and son had different experiences now it's an incredibly different experience a father and a son and a son of the within 40 years like it's fantastic So the big problem is is the values that are that are being threatened by that and many of them should be obviously and and then there are some that. Probably shouldn't disappear altogether the big problem is deciding which ones we want to retain I think what kind of a chair about Nixon's use and in your eyes I must say that as far as Nixon themselves is concerned I haven't really gotten in to him it's more been things about. Things about the Vietnam schtick in general and then I refer to him as in so far as he is he's now the guy who has to you know do the thing. The things I've developed the most up to now which are new and which are kind of you know what would you what are we talking about this kind of comedy social satire social commentary whatever are a drug rap. Think about values and conspicuous consumption concerning what we sell in novelty stores we sell fake vomit and we sell little pieces of dog crap and there are people who have to walk by the don't have enough food that day you know and and there's a long thing about it and how do you sell and buy dog happen some of the theory that must go into it and there is. There is stuff about hair clay Vietnam you heard some of these things tonight somewhat edited in some cases because. These you know the folks here don't really I don't know whether it is whether they don't understand or don't like but there are certain things that I'm just best avoiding while I'm here about films yeah I do I'd like to write them have you done another question I didn't want you don't have you written for No I haven't done any writing outside of my own material but I have a film I'm writing now I hope someone will like it and make it some time you know when I finish it's not a thing I can do every day because I'm trying to get this thing working when I can I work on it I'd like to do that eventually write a film a play a couple of films a book that can turn into a film I really found out the last 2 years of the thing I enjoy most is writing these ideas out delivering them from a stage is 2nd to that it's nice to be able to deliver your own material but it's so much better now I've found to be able to sit and write a thing I want most is to say how I feel not so much out loud as just to have it written out and I don't know I'm 33 if I could do my com anything for. 5 or 6 or 7 more years and I really feel I got a lot of that out of my system on stage and then I could really concentrate on writing and have a have a career at that and so it's the most independent thing you can do it anywhere in the world and that's what I love about it and those would be my general plans I really do want to try this concert thing and try to establish that reputation and do it for several years and really just be able to do it for nice audiences and groovy nice heads and big audiences you know but. But I know I'll tire of that and then I think that the answer will be writing only I think about the future and that will improve the line thank you you know you got to just keep working but it's fun work you know that's what I see what your job all thinking up funny what a great job so I would least happy and then you know and as I get to say it crazy I hope that you get a chance to come back and have Cisco maybe you know and have a place where you can say and are received well good well thank you I'll be looking forward to it certainly one place that I you know I will want to miss and that was Alan Farley interviewing George Carlin in 1970 at the Playboy Club in San Francisco . George Carlin you're very unusual guest for Pacifica Radio you're probably the only person in the United States that we don't have to give the Carlin warning to about which words you can't. Grab Yes because it's named after you Larry Bensky if p.f.a. Interviewing George Carlin on June 4th 1907 you've done many things and I'll do the classic radio talk show host research I'll read the flap copy of Ok Here you've had 18 it says hit comedy albums won 2 Grammys into Cable Ace awards had your own television sitcom appeared in 9 movies 9 solo h.b.o. Stand up comedy specials the bookies say you work about 100 nights a year he has clubs no no no theaters and concert halls I'm very very territorial about their peers in concert halls very busy life but this is your 1st book yes. This match we could talk about in your book page after page of various wisdoms and if I write about this book which I may well do because I really was quite entertained in news that enthralled by reading thank you dropping thank you by George Carlin several themes came through to me very clearly one is your love language and contradictions inherent in human utterance and I know you're a high school drop out you don't have a Ph d. In linguistics or anything like that to what do you attribute your fascination with the intellectual constructs of language and the ironies and contradictions in how we communicate through language well thank you for the wonderful description of that I mean I'm I'm sort of complimented at the same time I'm gathering information about how to describe myself. I think more things are genetic then we have reason to suspect even at this time and and my grandfather who was a policeman in New York City at the turn of the century the family legend has it that he during his adult years wrote out in longhand the works of Shakespeare because of the joy it gave him and he too was more or less self educated as they say my mother was careful to lead me to the dictionary whenever possible would point out interesting figures of speech when she did even a newspaper when she came across an interesting thing in a column or some turn of phrase that she thought was stunning or marvelous she would show me and talk about it my father whom I didn't know. Was a public speaker and an advertising salesman the National Ad Manager of the New York Sun and raconteur a great storyteller and won the Dale Carnegie national public speaking contest in 135 against 800 other people with his subject the power of mental demand so you don't like it off the rocks as they say and the apple doesn't fall far from that and that's right as the twig is bent or something something in the middle of all that so so a lot of it is genetic and then I have an analytical and critical side to my nature I think that that lends itself to to wanting to point out other people's errors or or their weaknesses in language but. Do you remember as a as a child being the type of kid that everybody would stop and listen to where you're always Mabel to make your family and your friends laugh 2 things yes the answer is yes I was a kid in the you know we had we had hundreds and hundreds of kids in our neighborhood and me I mean you know New York the overlapping streets and blocks and neighborhoods in that the overlapping age groups of you you know your bigger brother would hang around with my bigger brother and our younger brothers hung around together but we never saw each other. So I came from that kind of neighbor and any time we got caught any times 3 or 4 of us were together and we were in trouble in the police or on the way or the guard at the Columbia University was about to apprehend us let you judge do the talking let George you do the talking Ga Ga get us out it is so I was that guy and and secondly my mother taught me early that I was kind of cute and clever and funny that I could do in the Taisha and she taught me to imitate Mae West whom I'd never seen a let's hear that now can I come up and you mean it's absurd it was much cuter at 4 but it was it was the standard line I wanted to come up and see me sometime but the hand on the hip was part of the deal but I never heard her and here's a here's a guy doing impressions of person he hadn't ever seen or heard so when I got the laughs I realized I think I think there's an attraction you know when you're a kid especially slightly lonely. Getting the attention and approval of adults is very important and for it to come so naturally to just flow out of who I was was attractive and I think those kind of things just lead you in that direction because it's rewarding it's like Pavlov's But you come from the last generation you as you say in the book now I'm not revealing any secrets here you're 60 years own you come from the last generation whose imaginations and whose impressions of the world were not formed from a little black and white or color screen in your home you write or read people you don't have to be when you grew up no radio I got in on the ground floor of t.v. But I was already in my teens and I was out on the streets a lot so I got a taste of it but I was mostly a child of radio and the golden age of radio as they call it and yeah I was alone at home a lot because my mother worked my father had been asked to leave much earlier he he couldn't metabolize ethanol successfully I think I know what you're talking to so he was gone but that's too bad because he was a bright guy but he was a bit of a bully. So my mother raised us on a good advertising woman's salary for the 1940 s. Which was impressive. Then and still is and and so I was alone a lot on the radio fill those fill those gaps the radio provided the you know the theater of the mind as it's called sometimes George Carlin This is the time of year when many eminent sages such as yourself when hauled upon to address graduation ceremonies and counsel the hope of the future as they're called in the great cliche and I found in your book your new book during brain droppings. One section which I think could kind of serve as a graduation address I don't know if you intended it as such but it's called Rules to live by and I wonder if you could perhaps share that with our Pacific audience here Ok and I'm new enough at this that I don't know whether to read this as if I'm reading or as if I'm speaking whatever you decide to do I think will be fine there will develop rules to live by life is not as difficult as people think all one needs is a good set of rules says it is probably too late for you here are some guidelines to pass along to your children one Relax and take it easy Don't get caught up in hollow conceits such as quote doing something with your life unquote such twaddle is outmoded and a sure formula for disappointment to whatever it is you pursue trying to do it just well enough to remain in the middle 3rd of the field keep your thoughts and ideas to yourself and don't ask questions remember the squeaky wheel is the 1st one to be replaced 3 size people up quickly and develop rigid attitudes based on your 1st impression if you try to delve deeper and get to quote know people you're asking for trouble for Don't fall for that superstitious nonsense about treating people the way you would like to be treated as a transparently narcissistic approach and maybe the sign of a weak mind. 5 spend as much time as you can pleasing and impressing others even if it makes you unhappy pay special attention to shallow manipulators who can do you the most harm remember in the overall scheme you count for very little 6 surround yourself with inferiors and losers not only will you look good by comparison but they will look up to you and that will make you feel better 7 don't buy into the sentimental notion that everyone has shortcomings it's the surest way of undermining yourself remember the really best people have no defects if you're not perfect something is wrong 8 if by some off chance you do detect a few faults 1st accept the fact that you are probably deeply flawed then make a list of your faults and dwell on them carry the list around and try to think of things to add blame yourself for everything 9 be aware of intuition and gut instincts they are completely unreliable Instead develop preconceived notions and don't waver unless someone tells you to then change your mind and adopt their point of view but only if they seem to know what they're talking about 10 Never give up on an idea simply because it is bad and doesn't work clinging to it even when it is hopeless Anyone can cut and run but it takes a very special person to stay with something that is stupid and harmful 11 always remember today doesn't count trying to make something out of today only robs you of precious time that could be spent daydreaming or resting up. 12 try to dwell on the past think of all the mistakes you've made and how much better it would be if you hadn't made them think of what you should have done and blame yourself for not doing so and don't go easy be really hard on yourself 13 if by chance you make a fresh mistake especially a costly one try to repeat it a few times so you become familiar with it and can do it easily in the future write it down put it with your list of faults 14 Be aware also of the dangerous trap of looking ahead it will only get you in trouble instead try to drift along from day to day enemy enduring fashion don't get sidetracked with some foolish plan 15 finally enjoy yourself all the time and do whatever you want Don't be seduced by that mindless chatter going around about responsibility that's exactly the sort of thing that can ruin your life. George Carlin reading from his new book Brain Droppings his address to you graduates out there are some may be graduating from the 8th grade some may have advanced even further. But some words of wisdom to live by here on Pacifica Radio is living room one of the reasons I selected that passage George Carlin it's virtually the only 12 minutes or so in length that I could find that is not laced with the kind of verbiage that we are not allowed to use on the air so how did that happen it happened because of the Carlin case and actually Pacifica versus the f.c.c. I'm receiving a verse of the f.c.c. But it's known colloquially Yet the car landed on Friday and I remember the only other time I ever met you was back in the mid seventy's when this came up you know what happened was that the Pacifica station in New York played a cut from one of your albums the 7 words they won't let me say on t.v. That exam Well actually it was to sequence of that that was on class clown right they played the sequel to it called filthy words from occupation fool right from occupation it was the sequel technically and it is the 7 words which we will find posted around this and every other radio station in the network that you can't say Pacifica played that somebody objected to make a long story short it became a major federal case went to the Supreme Court and we lost by the determining vote of $5.00 to $4.00 plus one squeaker probably was 9 to nothing now considering. It would be this or 12 not that very many people who get on the court now 3 you know I'm sure there are 3 they don't tell us about it so George Carlin is responsible for the fact that he's not responsible for to try to test the awful open as he has obviously throughout his life and the didn't want to test it and if he didn't hear it didn't stretch it didn't bend it didn't break and we were told in no uncertain terms that if we ever broadcast those words again except inadvertently occasionally and apologize profusely for doing so we might lose our license and ability to broadcast what does it say that 20 years later we're still having this conversation about. It's Should we have a volved path that's fine or well we should have evolved much more quickly in a lot of respects. You know there are 2 things that I blame for the foot more or less for the abysmal condition of this make Nissen species that had such potential at one time and that is religion and commerce and those are the 2 things that hinder us here I mean the religious people say this is immoral it is corrupting and it will do bad things to your character if you even hear these words as a child or a grown up or whatever and Commerce says if you say the sting is the customers and advertisers are going to run from you so because of these 2 guiding principles which have ruined the species we now know this is just another example of it the sexual language arts got a logical language but of course now you're living proof that that's not true on the 2nd level anyway we could not yet and I have been successful in spite of it or because of it commercially Yes but you're still not been able to become successful religiously or would you say you are no not even spiritual you as another word I don't care for it's annoyance it's an over badly overused word especially by those people who flee from religion and looking for something to call themselves and I just think of it as being in the universe and being Ok you know but you clearly run up against these obstacles in having and even further exposure to her words there's much more that we could read from this book for example right now which has page after page of outrageously funny I must say dialogue and monologue and analysis most of you can read on the radio yeah I am one of those odd cases where the mainstream grudgingly accept me because I'm somehow. Nonthreatening there's an aspect to what I do that is that it's not pleasant for some of them and then and it's also not pleasant for others who just want to be Ok you know they say boy I love that personally but I can't play and I can't talk like that you know what I mean so so there are those people but but because I have more than one aspect to what I do because I'm also like a friendly cousin like a goofy uncle because I say a lot of things about how your dogs and cats act how you drive what's in your refrigerator how you scratch yourself because I have some other channels into their psyches I'm Ok and if they take this extra baggage this so-called immoral or unpleasant or indecent baggage that I carry they accept me because I don't really threaten them the way Princess Lenny Bruce was it was a real stone threat to them and the times were somewhat different of course as well another theme that you have a lot of brain dropping George Carlin which is violent Yes Death people's aggressions against each other yeah sludge. Was all that coming from well you know if I had to say to you what is the answer I would say massive bloodshed I really would I don't really honestly deep down believe in political action I think the system contracts and expands as it wants to it accommodates these changes I think the civil rights movement was an accommodation on the part of the those who own the country I think they see where their self interest line is they see a certain amount of freedom seen as good an illusion of Liberty Give these people give these people of voting day every year so that they'll have the illusion of meaningless choice meaningless choice that we go like slaves and say jaw I voted they the limits of debate in this country are are are established before the debate even begins and everyone else was marginalized or made to seem either to be communists or was some sort of disloyal person a kook there's a word and now it's conspiracy say they've made that something that that is that is should not be even entertain. For a minute that powerful people might get together and have a plan doesn't happen in your kooky or a conspiracy buff so who you know the only way you cure that death bloodshed I don't advocate it but I see that it's really the only answer and of course in your book you have a swiftie in proposal somewhere for everyone being allowed to have a license where that to murder somebody else legal once when I heard of once a month once a month yes an inspection exactly would that work well I wish I still had it memorized as well as I did when I was doing it on stage for a short period of time the idea is that once a month we would have a day when it was perfectly legal to kill someone else without punishment but it wasn't it's not random and you can't save up your days you can't you know going to McDonald's after a year and say well I got 12 coming I'll just take out some people. You have to use it or lose it as is said and you might have special days there might be a day for spouses a day for x. Certainly a day for relatives both I think one day for blood relatives another day for legal relatives and and a whole parent's day why should the man and his brothers have all the phone get in there into the living room with a shotgun send your parents to the maker that's where they really say they want to be that was Larry Bensky interviewing George Carlin in 1997 from k p f a in Berkeley and that does it for this week's from the vault from the vault is a weekly series produced written and edited by Christopher sprinkle and executive produced by the Pacifica Radio Archives and Brian to Shay's or for more information on how to purchase a copy of this program or any of the archived materials we used to go online at from the Vault Radio dot org or call the Pacifica Radio Archives at 187350230 from the vault is presented as part of the Pacific a radio archives preservation and Access Project which is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the arts and grants from the Grammy Foundation the Ford Foundation University of California Berkeley by Barry Pacific a foundation thing. From contributions from Pacifica station listeners thanks to the Pacifica Radio Archive staff and special thanks to Karen and knowing you are volunteer for this week's show. Theme music is by Kevin Drum. Brighter shades or thanks for listening. Hi this is Alan Parsons You're listening to k.c. S b f.m. 91 Santa Barbara. Hi I'm Brenda she's Are director of the Pacifica Radio Archives and welcome to from the vault our weekly series that brings our history out of the vault and onto the radio this week we examine the blues when we talk about the contributions that women who are black women made who are not supposed to acknowledge them as having been agents of history today we present Professor Angela Davis speaking on blues legacies and black feminism and we have a special rare program of 1920 s. Blues legend Alberta Hunter recorded in 1978 at Pacifica Radio. The blues are commonly thought of as one of the most important and influential popular music styles originating right here in the United States as the black power movement was taking shape in 1963 poet Leroy Jones now known as Ameri Baraka wrote a book called blues people Negro music in white America the book examine this art form as a continuum accounting for the Blues ability to.