Back in Town

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For the 1959 jazz album by Mel Tormé, see Back in Town (Mel Tormé album).
For the 2006 jazz album by Matt Dusk, see Back in Town (Matt Dusk album).
Back in Town
Back in Town cover
Studio album by George Carlin
Released September 17, 1996
Recorded March 29-30, 1996
Genre Comedy
Length 61:07
Label Atlantic/WEA
Professional reviews
George Carlin chronology
Killer Carlin (1995) Back in Town (1996) You Are All Diseased (1999)

Back in Town is George Carlin's ninth HBO special. It was also released on CD on September 17, 1996. This was also his first of many performances at the Beacon Theater in New York City.

[edit] Track listing

  1. "Abortion" – 8:41
  2. "Sanctity of Life" – 3:49
  3. "Capital Punishment" – 8:40
  4. "State Prison Farms" – 8:13
  5. "Farting in Public" – 3:00
  6. "Familiar Expressions" – 9:14
  7. "Free-Floating Hostility" – 19:30

[edit] Familiar Expressions

One of the funniest and most clever bits of this outstanding performance was George's take on familiar expressions. This is the full transcription.

This next thing is about the English language, it's about little expressions we use, we all say them, and the little sayings and expressions we use all the time, most of us, and we never seem to examine these expressions very carefully at all. We just sort of say these things as if they made sense. Like:

Legally Drunk - Well if it's legal, what's the fucking problem? "Hey, leave my friend alone officer, he's legally drunk!"

You know where you can stick it - Why do we always assume everybody knows where they can stick it? Suppose you don't know, suppose you're a new guy. You have absolutely no idea where to stick it. I think there ought to be a government book entitled "where to stick it". Now that I think of it, I believe there is a government book like that, they send it to you on April 15th.

Undisputed Heavy-Weight Champion - Well if it's undisputed, what's all the fighting about?

It's the quiet ones you've got to watch - You know that one, eh? Every time you see a story about a serial-killer on TV, what do they do? They bring on the neighbor. And the neighbor says "well, he was always very quiet". Someone in the room says, "it's the quiet ones you've got to watch". This sounds to me like a very dangerous assumption. I'll bet you anything that while you're watching a quiet one, a noisy one will fucking kill you! Suppose you're in a bar and one guy's sitting over the side, reading a book, not bothering anybody and another guy is standing on the front with a machetti, banging on the bar, screaming "I'll kill the next motherfucker who comes in here!" Who are you going to watch? You're goddam right.

Lock him up and throw away the key - This is really stupid. Where are you going to throw the key? Right in front of the fucking jail? His friends will find it! How far can you throw a key? 50, 60 feet the most. Even if you lay it flat on its side and you scale it. What do you get? An extra 10 feet, tops. This is a stupid idea, needs to be completly re-thought.

Down the Tubes - You hear that one a lot. People say "Ah, the country is going down the tubes". What tubes? Have you seen any tubes? Where are these tubes? And where do they go? And how come there's more than one tube? It would seem to me, one country, one tube. Why, does every state all of the sudden has to have its own tube now? One tube is all you need. But a tube that big, someone would have seen it by now. Somebody would have said "Hey Joey, Joey, look at the fucking tube! Big-ass fucking tube over here!". You never hear that, you know why? No tubes. We don't have tube one! We are essentially tubeless.

Takes the cake - You know? We say "boy he really takes the cake!" Where? Where do you take a cake? To the movies? You know where I would take a cake? Down to the bakery, to see the other cakes. And how come he takes the cake, how come he doesn't take the pie? A pie is easier to carry than a cake, easy as pie. Hey wait! Cake is not too hard to carry either, piece of cake.

The greatest thing since sliced bread - So this is it, huh folks? A couple of hundred thousand years. The fucking Piramids for christ's sake! Panama Canal, the Great Wall of China... Even a Lava-Lamp to me is greater than sliced bread. What so great about sliced bread? You've got a knife, you've got a loaf of bread... SLICE THE FUCKING THING! And get on with your life.

Out walking the streets - You know? A guy gets a parole and they say "Now instead of being in prison, the guy is out walking the streets!" How do we know? Maybe the guy's home banging the baby-sitter. Not everybody that gets a parole is out walking the fucking streets. A lot of times they steal a car and we ought to be glad! Thank god he stole a car, at least he's not out walking the streets!

Fine and Dandy - That's an out-fashioned one isn't it here? You say to a guy "how are you?", he says "Fine and dandy!". Not me, I never say that. Do you know how come? Because I'm never both of those things at the same time! Sometimes I'm fine, not dandy. Close to dandy, approaching dandy, in the vicinity of dandyhood; not quite fully dandy. Other times I am, indeed, highly dandy. However, not fine. One time, one time, in 1965, August, for about an hour. I was both fine and dandy at the same time. But nobody asked me how I was! And I could have told them! I could have told them. I could have said to the person "fine and dandy". I consider it a lost opportunity.

Walking papers - You know, A guy gets fired. They say "Jeez, poor guy... well, they gave him his walking papers today". Did you ever get any walking papers? Seriously? Believe me, in my life I got fired a lot of times. You can tell. Never got any walking papers. Never got a pink slip either. Do you know what I would get? A guy would come to my desk and say "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!". You don't need paper for that. It's like the Riot Act.

The Riot Act - They keep telling you they are going to read to you. Have you heard this thing at all? Especially when you are a kid they threaten you "You wait until your father comes home, he's going to read you the riot act!", "Tell him I already read it myself! And I didn't like it either, I consider it wordy and poorly thought-out. If he wants to read me something how about the 'Gentleman's Guide to the Golden Age of Blowjobs'?"

More than Happy - I bet you say that sometimes, don't you? Once in a while you say to somebody "Oh, I'd be more than happy to do that!". How can you be more than happy? To me this sounds like a dangerous mental condition. "We had to put Dave in the mental home. He was... More than happy".

In your own words - Do people say that you? Do you know where you hear that a lot? In a classroom or in a courtroom. They'll say to you "Tell us in your own words". Do you have your own words? "Hey, I'm using the ones everybody else's been using!". Next time they tell you to say something in your own words say "Nick Flut Blirn Equando Floo!"