Napalm And Silly Putty Review
i got this as a christmas present a few years ago. i was a bit sceptical because i never heard of him and i thought his jokes would be too old fashioned for me to relate to. but after the first couple pages i couldn't stop laughing. when i read this at school i had a hard time trying not to laugh out loud so people wouldn't stare at me. i definitely recommend this book to anyone.
Napalm And Silly Putty Overview
He's the inventor of Past-Tense TV (featuring "Got Smart," "Father Knew Best," and "It Was Left to Beaver"); the tireless crusader for such charities as the Center for Research into the Heebie Jeebies, Children of Parents with Bad Teeth, and the State Hospital for Those Who Felt All Right About a Year Ago; founder of the George Carlin Book Club (top titles: "How to Act Laid-Back During a Grease Fire," "Fill Your Life with Croutons," and "The Meaning of Corn"); and the only social commentator with the guts to point out that "the day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life."
Yes, George Carlin is back with more of what he does better than any other comic today: uproarious observations, laser-targeted crankiness, linguistic legerdemain, and inspired weirdness. ("If the shoe fits, get another just like it." "When you sneeze, all the numbers in your head go up by one.") Napalm & Silly Putty is just what his fans have been waiting for�another generous helping of notions, nonsense, assertions, assumptions, mockery, merriment, silliness, sarcasm, and, to be sure, plenty of disturbing references and toxic alienation. George wouldn't have it any other way.
Napalm And Silly Putty Specifications
Standup comic George Carlin follows up his dark-horse smash bestseller Brain Droppings with another compendium of cranky meditations, cinching his reputation as the Andy Rooney of boomer hepcats. "Road rage, air rage," Carlin rails. "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." Carlin is not into the lengthy essay--he's a sprinter of the mind. Most sentences in the book could be lifted out to stand alone and provoke deep thought: "How can it be a spy satellite if they announce on television that it's a spy satellite?" Good question. "Why do they bother saying 'Raw sewage'? Do some people cook that stuff?" Yuck, but yes, Carlin's got a point.
He can do an extended bit too, most memorably the transcript of Jesus on a talk show plugging his new tell-all memoir about the Trinity, Three's a Crowd. Carlin is funny, but genuinely angry and poignant at times: "You live 80 years and at best you get about six minutes of pure magic," he says. Sad, but about right.
And how did Carlin get into his line of business, "thinking up goofy s---," as he puts it? There's a clue in one entry in this book: "As of 1995 the number of people who had lived on earth was 105,472,380,169 ... it means that at this point there have been almost 1 quadrillion human bowel movements and most of them occurred before people had anything to read. These are the kind of thoughts that kept me from moving quickly up the corporate ladder."
Thank god Carlin stayed low on the corporate food chain and high on his own utterly idiosyncratic ideas! --Tim Appelo
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Customer Reviews
Not as funny on paper... - J. Carroll - Island Heights,NJ
Carlin, the great misanthropic comic of the 20th century, is ill served by the translation of his commentary to the written word. On stage, his vitriol is made more palatable by his ability to convey his disappointment with mankind through vocal inflection and physicality, particularly his facial contortions which can be truly hilarious. There is so much anger and hate in his work that without these accompaniments, this material falls flat. What your left with is pages of one liners and some weakly developed paragraphs rehashing old bits and commentary. Rather than extending himself, he basically takes stage material and puts it on the page. Some of it is funny as Carlin could be brilliant, but the older Carlin got the less joy there is in his sour remonstrances.That shows up far too clearly in this book.
Napalm and Silly Putty - Carlin was always true Carlin - Bill O - Forest Hill, MD
George always had a tendency to get carried away with some of his rants, and in this book he was true to form. But that's what made him so darn funny! Since he takes shots at virtually everyone and everything, it's hard to be offended when he targets one of your soft spots. Some of his short takes are absolutely hilarious. His fans (me among them) truly miss him.
RIP - A. Hunter - Sacramento, CA USA
I wish one of the greatest comics of our time would stay around a bit longer. Unabashed, hillarious, mind opening on the serious issues though some super lighthearted approaches, great read.
Better on Stage - Vance -
Though the insights into various human behaviors are funny, it is more funny on stage, and left me yawning.
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