Curious George

You've been pretty consistently grumpy over the years. Do you hate a lot of people?

Not really. The word "hate," that's a convenient word we use. But I don't live angrily. I don't live with hate. I don't have any grudges in life. I've never held grudges. I've never had resentment. I see people who have that and I think, "What a waste of time." I've really never been in a fight.

Really?

Never, never. And I don't lose my temper. I mean, I can get irritated, I can get mad and angry about something, which is a good, healthy thing, I guess, but no. Anyone who's been around me for five minutes or five years would have to say that I'm pretty even-tempered, and I'm pretty open with strangers and fans and stuff.

The closest I can get to that [anger] is to say that, at some point there leading into the '90s, I divorced myself from any stake in the human adventure or the American adventure. That sounds kind of pompous so let me just break that down. What I decided was that I didn't give a fuck about what happens on this planet to these people. I mean, I see the nice things in people, I see the good things, but I also see what a depraved, sick species we are, the only species that kills its own for personal gain.

I'll go back to square one on this: We squandered a lot of gifts. Human beings were given a lot of great gifts. We were given the ability to reason, this extra-large brain, walking erect, having binocular vision and the opposable thumb, and all of these things, and we had such promise, but we squandered it on goods and superstition. We gave ourselves over to the high priests and the traders, and they are the ones we allow to control us. I think that's a huge mistake and it's disappointing to me. Now, the corollary is, America was given great gifts, this ideal form of government, this most improved form of self-government that has ever come along up until that time, and we squandered it. And once again, on the same two things: gizmos and toys and gadgets -- goods, property, possessions -- and also this country is far too religious for its own good.

So at some point, I drifted away from feeling any allegiance. Abraham Maslow the psychologist once said, "The fully realized man does not identify with the local group." Boy, when I read that, I said, that's me. I don't identify with city, state, government, religion, association, county, organization or species, even. And what I realized was that this feeling of alienation from all that gave me a kind of emotional detachment that was very valuable artistically. To be able to look at things and not give a fuck. To not have a rooting interest in the outcome. I don't really care what happens in this country. I'll be honest with you. I don't give a fuck what happens. I don't give a fuck what happens to this earth, because it's all temporal and it's all bullshit.

You sound like a fallen idealist.

That's it. You've got it exactly. I don't feel cynical -- I feel more like a skeptic and a realist -- but, if cynical I am, they have said that if you scratch a cynic you'll find a disappointed idealist. And that's a fact. I'm sure that flame flickers.

And I'm very excited, for the sake of itself, for this Obama story. It's very wonderful to watch and to follow and to read, because it is so different from what America has allowed itself to do. And I don't know that it goes anywhere, and I'm not investing in it, but I do enjoy witnessing it. I think it's a very exciting story.

Well, then, are you actually going to vote for him? [Carlin has said that he doesn't vote and hasn't voted for anyone since McGovern.]

No, still no. I can't do that. Because then I'm hooked into a result, then I'm a cheerleader. I don't want to be that. If that man is going to win, or if anybody is going to win or lose, it's not going to be by one vote, I don't give a fuck what they say about Florida. You know, one vote doesn't mean anything, and I can't throw in my hands with this process, because then I become a part of it, even to a very small degree, and a tool of it, and I don't want to do that. I like sitting over here on the sidelines.

But by sitting on the sidelines, you're depending on the others to participate, so that you can be a spectator.

Yeah, well, but if it all exploded today or tomorrow I wouldn't give a fuck.

So you're really just protecting yourself emotionally from caring about a country and a world that's falling to pieces.

That's a great analysis. That's beautiful. That's fine. I can't help it! I'm human.

I'm sure it feels better than giving in to the dread the rest of us feel over the sorry state of things.

It absolutely does feel much better. I see your point, and your point is accurate. I mean, that's the way I feel.

But I think most people would say that's an irresponsible stance, too. You're putting yourself above it and not taking responsibility by saying, "OK, I'm just going to be a spectator to this; my calling is to observe the madness."

No, I don't use words like "calling."

You're a stickler for words!

I do feel that when you're born into the world, you're given a ticket to the freak show, and when you're born in the United States, you're given a front-row seat. And some of us have notebooks. Some of us who sit there have a pencil and a notebook, and so that's what I want to do. Because we're dealing with an imperfect human animal and an imperfect human system. I'll never have the ideal form of the thing I'm describing, so there will always be threads hanging out the side of it that a person can unravel and pick at and say, "Yeah, but ..." That's fine with me, I have to cop to those things. But as close as I can get to having a system where I can operate in this manner, I think I have found a way to do that. But I agree with you, it's not perfectly ordained. It's not really ... Uh ...

Rhetorically unimpeachable.

You can criticize it from several angles and good arguments can be made and I respect that. So now I'm the defiant adolescent again. Fuck you people.

Well, every stance comes down to that, right? It's just a choice -- you can either rationalize it or not.

Yeah. Fuck you people!

So that's your mantra.

Not one by one. Just as a group.

You've divested your interests in this world. When did this happen? You said the early '90s?

Well, in 1992 I had that piece called "The Planet Is Fine, the People Are Fucked" arguing that the creation of humans may have been nature's way of finding out how to make plastic. It was better stated and longer, but that was the period when I noticed that the writing had become very important to me. The 1990 show and the 1992 show. The 1992 show was the best example of the thing I'm talking about; that's when I grew into it. And I would say that this attitude occurred around that time, and I don't think it was a "Eureka!" moment, although at one point I must've put it into words for myself, but I think it was a slowly growing thing. And I was probably looking for a way to justify that I didn't give a fuck, so I created this nice system.

It's almost like a twisted version of Buddhism. You're not attached to the outcome.

Right.

But if there were an apocalypse, like the nightmare scenario you describe in your bit on natural disasters, you might have to dive into the fray with the rest of us, or pick up a rifle and defend the cans of beans in your cabinets.

I'm always practical.

Do you imagine these scenarios? Like, "I might have to blow my neighbor's head off if he comes over wanting to eat my cans of beans"?

I certainly have thought about variations on that, yes.

Next page: "You can't go wrong too much if you follow your impulses"