Carlin Destroys Euphemism in When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

Wal-Mart has refused to stock George Carlin’s new book When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? The dustcover shows Mr. Carlin seated in Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” looking expectantly off to the side. Wal-Mart claims the cover may offend, and therefore, to spare sensitive shoppers any undue anxiety, his book won’t get through the door. According to Mr. Carlin, this is exactly the kind of thing that is wrecking America.

As in his previous books, Napalm and Silly Putty and Braindroppings, he provides in essay form many of the routines he’s performed live and on HBO. In recent years, he has focused his natural love of words and language on a rather Orwellian trend – the diminution of meaning by the expansion of verbiage. He’s always hated hypocrisy (while fully aware it is necessary lest human beings slaughter one another in even greater numbers than usual). But as marketing and advertising occupy more and more of Americans’ time, the situation has gone critical.

As an example, he traces the devolution of the terms “shell shock.” A straight forward term from World War I that refers to the natural human desire to get the heck away from the explosions taken to an extreme that renders the victim incapable of performing many routine functions. By World War II, it was “battle fatigue.” In Vietnam, it had been rendered “post-traumatic stress disorder.” The lack of directness, he suggests, prevented a lot of Vietnam vets from getting the help they needed when they needed it most.

Not particularly funny? No, not all of this book is. Frankly, it seems as if Mr. Carlin’s rebellion is no longer capable of being polite. He has, perhaps, been pushed too far by the people he’s worked against in his comedy since the late 1960s. The hippy-dippy weatherman is nowhere to be seen. And his attack on organized religion, while justified in most respects, doesn’t deliver the laughs quite so much as it delivers anger. The title is indicative of that section.

And yet, there is some very funny stuff. Mr. Carlin is at his best in the quick, goofy statement of almost logic. “You know what kind of guy you never see anymore? A fop.” Or “Ignore these four words.” He had an uncle who, when he retired, didn’t get a gold watch. Instead his former employer calls him every hour to tell him the time. “If no one knows when a person is going to die, how can we say he died prematurely?”


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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