You know, when I was 18, 19, George Carlin kind of felt like an intermediate step,

like an early step towards thinking about the big ideas, because he wasn't just a comedian,

especially like from the 80s onward he was talking about big political things.

There were times when he sounded almost like Noam Chomsky, the stuff he would say,

the bits he would do

about language and the way that the media uses language to manipulate us. You know, kindergarten,

Noam Chomsky. He's what you do before you get to Nob Chomsky. As well as, you know, there are times

when he sounds kind of like the kindergarten Howard Zinn or the kindergarten Hunter Thompson or whatever.

I sound like I'm knocking him,

but I don't mean to because I went into this episode fully prepared to cringe a lot,

fully prepared to be like, ugh, boy, this is, this is something best left in my past. And,

you know, while I will probably never love George Carlin like I loved him when I was 18, I do still like him.

The stuff I revisited, I enjoyed it quite a bit.

What's been your experience?

Yeah, I mean, you know, it set off alarm bells for me when you said you wanted to do a Carlin episode because I think I was anxious that you were going to try to do some kind of revisionist take on him or something.

But, you know, I was relieved that you enjoyed revisiting him.

And I certainly did as well.

I will say that the stuff of his that I find the funniest is often not the stuff that he did in stand-up specials.

The stuff I like the most are the kind of audiobook versions of, I guess, you know, prose works that he published.

Like napalm and silly putty and when will Jesus bring the pork chops?

What was that?

Brain Droppings is the other one?

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