George Carlin, Sex Crimes, Terrifying Questions

 Why does this small tidbit from George Carlin live rent-free in my head, after so many years?

This is from a bit, State Prison Farms, from his Back In Town (1996)

“Alright, next group: sex criminals. Completely incurable, you got to lock them up. You could outlaw religion and in most cities sex crimes would disappear in a couple of generations. But we don’t have time for rational solutions!”

Outlaw religion? For sex crimes? 

And here are two headlines from the NYT’s of 1/29/24:

So…depressing. 

And here is a sentence of transcript from the Podcast, Terrifying Questions, Episode 12: Are We Our Bodies? (January 29, 2024): “It may be that the christian despising of the body because it’s animal and sinful and so on is part of this illicit separation of the mind or the spirit from the body, because it’s by drawing a sharp contrast that you can then kinda condemn all the bodily stuff as lower and base and not worthy of respect.”

Condemn the body.

I think George Carlin saw the connection from christian hatred of the body (as the source of original sin [an illogical concept but here we are]), to the condemnation of the body, to the prevalence of sex crimes. 

What if we didn’t despise the body? 

What if we accepted that we are our bodies? And that our bodies aren’t intermediaries of sensation/perception?
What if we respected our bodies as the source of our being-in-the-world?
What if we didn’t treat our bodies as base vehicles, depreciated to valueless the moment we leave them at death (again, an illogical concept but here we are)?

What if sex weren’t the source of sin?
If we ditched this (illogical) concept, would our public be healthier?

Truman Capote, AI, and Comedy

I recently reread Truman Capote's La Côte Basque from my Great Esquire Fiction book and it prompted my research into this story, which prompted this post on Artificial Intelligence and Comedy.

In researching this story and Capote, google kept popping up things about Capote's IQ. After I finished my research of this story (and how it basically ruined Capote's life and resulted in his slow suicide via drugs and alcohol) I went back to the Capote IQ.

Now the internet isn't exactly the place for unequivocal truth, but let's say that Capote's "internet" IQ of 215 is close to the truth. 

Now we know that AI can now write novels and poetry and there is cause to believe it can be "good" or "decent" writing. 

Because AI is a matter of pattern recognition. Recognize enough patterns and you can create, be it skyscrapers or stories. 

This is a crucial point. 

So I thought of comedy. If AI can recognize the parts/patterns of a joke, (set-up, punch line, etc.), it can in theory, create comedy.

So in time we can expect computers to be comedians?

Naw.

Part of what computers and AI can't access or pattern recognize, is feelings. Humans have feelings. And pain. Certainly what drove part of Richard Pryor's comedy was pain. Part of what drove George Carlin's comedy was anger.

Can computers pattern recognize their way to pain or anger?

In my estimation, no.

Pain and anger, (and I say this in my 51st year on the planet, and in therapy), require a biography, a full narrative to draw from.

Computers and AI don't have a past, replete with feelings and memories.

Can computers and AI pattern recognize their way to feelings and memories?

You can see where this is going. An infinite regress, a homonculus with a homonculus with a...

Kurzweil is probably correct about the future and the singularity may be near. And he's probably correct that we shouldn't fear it or the algorithms.

Probably.

I have always been more afraid of humans than anything else, being a student of history.

I certainly do not fear robots and AI creating anything artistic that will rival what humans can do. 

Capote, IQ of 215 and all, was, per Nietzsche, human, all too human, and imperfect and flawed and capable of sadness and regret and shame, in incredible proportions.

Ah feelings, nothing more than feelings.
Trying to forget my feelings...

AI can't feel or forget.

Our (human) art is safe.

Just not from humans.

Get it?

Coping Saws

I keep telling myself I’m going to die.

But not for the reason or reasons you might think.

I tell myself I’m going to die because its the truth. I dig the truth.

Who has two thumbs and loves the truth? This guy [thumbs pointed at me]. 

I also keep telling myself that I’m going to die to get perspective. Knowing I’m going to die makes the two hour commute a little easier ya know.  Some things truly are small stuff and don’t need sweated (can sweated be past tense?) so letting go of the tension from jerk-offs (massholes they call them in the Bay State) that don’t abide traffic laws, makes good sense. So does the occasional mishap at work, or gaining a few extra pounds, or fight with the wife, or when you get the stink eye from other parents at the soccer game because you are being a little too, ahem, loud on the sideline. All small schtuff in the big scheme o’ things. And nothing sets matters to scale better than imagining your death. You know, how not living -at all- minimizes all the trivial/minor/ho-hum/molehill “problems” of life.  

Which begs the questions…

But wait, does it really beg the question? Maybe it slightly pleads or strongly encourages the question.

I digress, which begs the question: what are the problems that don’t benefit from imagining your death? Don’t sweat the small stuff I got, but for heaven’s sake, can someone tell me the big stuff I do need to sweat? Certainly the it’s all small stuff, while fun for a t-shirt or bumper sticker, is inane at best and dangerous at worst.

I mean to play devil’s advocate a tad: Because the masshole going 88 mph on 195 east while creeping into your lane is taking your life into his me-machine clutching hands while his oblivious-to-you eyes are texting out 

tom brady is the goat bro

Failing to get angry (sweating) about this -the possibility of death via lack of concern from Pat Patriot driving like a masshole -shows a disregard for your own life on a par with suicide. Does it not?

In the parlance of our time, distracted drivers are, kind of a big deal, because they take your life and death into their me-machine clutching hands and distracted eyes. This is certainly not small stuff, right?

Someone tell me which is which. Someone tell me what I should get fired up, angry, irate, upset about because I honestly don’t know anymore. Imagining my death cannot be a sustainable coping mechanism...if it means not caring a hoot about the guy stabbing me in the throat with a chinese throwing star or inserting a civil war era, rusty sabre through my carotid artery...right?

But how to cope with all of this, this, or these, people, and all the nasty, horrible stuff they do, commit, violate? Reminds me of the George Carlin question about exactly how humans have passed chickens in goodness. Consider that chickens don’t torture their own kind, only humans do that. Neato.

Still, George Carlin aside, how to cope?

How. To. Cope?

Small stuff ends where….worrisome stuff begins…?

I know it’s possible. Look at the life of Nelson Mandela for perspective. But I can’t get there when I need to get there. I can’t get there when I give a shit about something. When I feel mistreated or abused I can’t just tell myself that others are mistreated and abused, and sometimes far worse...can I? How would that mechanism work in the ole Kantian categorical imperative?

What if everyone just said “someone has/had it worse” every time some injustice was committed against them?

Seems like a recipe for disaster; seems like the recipe we’ve been following - maybe.

I don’t know man. Maybe I need a new paradigm? A coping paradigm. Current shit isn’t working.

(notice how Clooney pronounced it para-dine)

I am not Left Handed

Maybe you've seen The Princess Bride and recognize the title as those words spoken by Inigo Montoya.

Nor am I left handed and nor do I usually blog about my work. I do enjoy a good noir flick though (The Third Man, Double Indemnity come to mind).

But I have an advisee who has shaken me to my core. Probably because I don't do enough crunches or planks but that's not important right now.

Here is what he said:

I found out ten years ago I'm left handed.

I shit you not.

Take a moment and let that sink in.

What does that even mean!

You've used your hands all life long, assuming you have both, you've used both of them, all life long.

What does it mean to learn you are left handed???? and how did you learn it??? did someone tell you after a battery of tests???? because you couldn't figure it out and had to solve the mystery before you died???

What the living fuck? What kind of person drops this nugget ninja in my cranium to fester and bite at my brain like a mosquito?

Dammit this is why people are the worst.

The 505 Voice & Style Genealogy Assignment

ENL 505: Stylistics
Voice & Style Genealogy Assignment

Before Philo could savor the fear and awe in his face with any sense of justice –even a simple he’ll think twice sense- the part of Philo’s jaw that connects to his skull was separated and fractured into pieces from the punch of an OU wrestler who military pressed his body weight five times a week.
….Joe watched one of the girls talking into her phone: “a man’s been hurt on Court Street, he’s unconscious, in front of Pawpurr’s…” He looked back down at the ground, through the torsos parting, to see Philo’s face mangled into something like a broken vase, once pale, turning purple and black –his jaw had come so far away from his skull that his face didn’t look human except for his partially open eyes. Blood was filling under his distorted mouth, oozing from ugly lips swollen and shredded from foot stomps, in meek gurgles as his short breaths now condensed in the cold night air.

There is facility here; ability to convey story/scene and show style doing it. Emerging is awareness of grammar and syntax and using those for semantic/emotional affect. My hope is this is reminiscent of David Foster Wallace.

Captain And Officer

Captain: Foul play?

Officer: Poultry don’t engage in games sir; I believe play, with designated rules and desired outcomes, usually of the zero-sum type, is a solitary human endeavor. Why do you ask sir?

Captain: What are you talking about? The dead body here on the floor! Was it foul play do you think?

Officer: I don’t think birds had anything to do with it sir. Unless it was a murder of crows. Tee hee.

Captain: What do we know about forced entry or robbery at this point?

Officer: No sign of forced entry, nothing missing other than some decent decorating ideas. How do people live with these bland color palettes and mismatched materials not to mention a total disregard for feng shui?

Captain: Are you saying Chinese food is missing? Or was thrown away?

Officer: No feng shui is the use of energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment. Sir.

Captain: Uh huh,... you hungry?

Officer: We just ate sir. Donuts.

Captain: Yeah! Well I want to use some energy forces to you know, harmonize with my surrounding, environments to feng some shui into my belly.

Officer: Sir?

Captain: Any Chinese places around here?

Officer: Sir it’s 9am.

Captain: Yeah, that’s early. Even for hot and sour soup.

Officer: I’m an egg drop guy sir.

Captain: Can it with that egg-drop talk would ya! I’m getting hungry again. No forced entry, nothing taken. When does forensics get here?

Officer: He was called ten minutes ago sir.

Captain: Call him again! Tell him to pick up some Chinese food. I don’t care what time it is!

Officer: Sir, the usual?

Captain: Tell ‘em to go heavy on the fortune cookies.

This conveys my love for Woody Allen’s humor, George Carlinesque word play, and reflects my desire to make others laugh.

Venn Diagram of essentials:

From the humorists I appreciate the ability to simply be funny but also hide profound points in humor.

From the fiction authors I value the ability to make others feel emotions, the power of voice, and like the humorists, to place philosophical ideas in a story.
From the nonfiction authors I glean the middle style and connecting seemingly disparate ideas into a larger philosophical point.

***

Word Count: 570

Write: Although you may not have written much beyond academic or corporate writing, still you have a voice, a style, and you have been influenced by others, whether they be famous writers, not-so-famous writers, friends or family members. In this assignment, please look at some representative samples of your writing and describe your voice and style as you see them emerging from those pieces. Then, I’d like you to conduct a genealogy of your voice and style, tracing them back through the various writerly influences in your life, and what about those writers influenced you as they did. These writers don’t have to be literary. Could be the writers of jingles or cereal boxes, if that’s the writing that counts for you. Feel free to draw a family tree or flow chart, if that helps.

Without Your Demons Kicking Me

I found myself driving home later than usual last night and in an  effort to hear something different on the radio I tried my independent station from the University of Rhode Island, WRIU, hoping to catch jazz or perhaps bluegrass.

Alas, it was a "country" block. Usually I would turn the station as I'm not a fan.

But when you hear a voice, so beautifully lush with despair and authenticity, you don't turn the fucking channel.

I didn't.

When the song was over I sat in the car in darkness and went to itunes and gobbled it up.

BTW, I know this will be sold under a country label genre but, a la George Carlin, it's all blues music.

Carlin:

I'll tell you a little secret about the blues. It's not enough to know which notes to play, you have to know why they need to be played.

Suzanne Santo knows why they need to be played.

A More Sympathetic And Insightful Observer Of Human Beings

I literally (just kidding - forget I used "literally") just finished Ben Yagoda's Memoir and something strange happened near the very end.

Reading along, taking in some facts, marveling here and there, contextualizing periodically,  when all of a sudden I come to this:

"That is in part because she is a better writer and a more sympathetic and insightful observer of human beings than..."

and I hurt.

"Ouch" I monologue.

I think it was the, no, I know it was the sympathetic and insightful observer of human beings part that made it go in the bone.

I figure I am a pretty shitty writer right now but after reading this little ole sentence, I hurt because I figured that maybe I am a pretty shitty human being right now because I am not a sympathetic and insightful observer of human beings.

Walking to the library to return the book I monologued and tried to justify:

I am shitty at a lot of things: husbanding, parenting, guitar playing, singing (especially singing), electrical wiring, money earning, running (except from cops), hygiene upkeeping, anger managing on Rhode Island/Massachusetts highways, and so much more...

But I keep trying. I told myself.

And, as George Carlin said upon recounting that he never fucked a ten but that one night he fucked five twos, I think that outta count.

Do you know where your pantheism is?

What does it all mean?

The all in this case being, my shit…as in all of my concerns about all of my issues and responsibilities and why some of these aren’t more concerning to me and how this impacts my marriage which in turn impacts my overall concern level about concerns, both individual and en totum. 

Because it’s all connected right? You don’t have to be Spinoza to see this. You don’t have to have pantheism in your vocabulary to know that your mommy and daddy issues affect you and your potential mate and potential children and rearing of children and interpersonal relationships and then you remember that your parents’ parents influenced them and how your dad’s old man was as cold as ice in August and blah blah blah…

But I digress. 

Speaking of regressing, did you catch the epic regression of the United States on tv the other night? Wow. The beginning of the end right? 

Which brings us back to it all being connected. Reminds me of a joke by George Carlin on education:

"Not too bright, folks. Not too fucking bright. But if you talk to one of them about this, if you isolate one of them, you sit 'em down rationally, you talk to 'em about the low IQ's and the dumb behavior and the bad decisions; right away they start talking about education. That's the big answer to everything: Education. They say, 'We need more money for education. We need more books, more teachers, more classrooms, more schools. We need more testing for the kids!' You say to 'em, 'Well, you know, we've tried all that and the kids still can't pass the tests'. They say, 'Aw, don't you worry about that, we're gonna lower the passing grades!' And that's what they do in a lot of these schools now, they lower the passing grades so more kids can pass. More kids pass, the school looks good, everybody's happy; the IQ of the country slips another two or three points and pretty soon, all you'll need to get into college is a fucking pencil! 'Gotta pencil? Get the fuck in there, it's physics!' Then everyone wonders why 17 other countries graduate more scientists than we do. Education!
Politicians know that word; they use it on you. Politicians have traditionally hidden behind three things: the flag, the Bible and children. 'No Child Left Behind! No Child Left Behind!' 'Oh really, well it wasn't long ago you were talking about giving kids a Head Start! Head Start, Left Behind, someone's losing fucking ground here!' But there's a reason. There's a reason. There's a reason for this. There's a reason education sucks and it's the same reason it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that.
I'm talking about the real owners now. The big, wealthy...The real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They've got you by the balls! They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying – lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking.
They're not interested in that! That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right! You know something? They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don't want that! You know what they want? They want Obedient Workers – Obedient Workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all from you, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club - and you ain't in it! You and I are not in the big club.
By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long and they tell you what to believe...All day long, beating you over the head in the media, what to believe, what to think and what to buy...The table is tilted, folks! The game is rigged! And nobody seems to notice, and nobody seems to care! Good honest, hard-working people! White collar, blue collar... Doesn't matter what color shirt you have on! Good honest, hard-working people continue...These are people of modest means!...continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them! They don't give a fuck about you! They don't give a fuck about you! They don't care about you! At all! At all! At all! Yeah! You know? And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on. The fact that Americans probably will remain willfully ignorant of the big red white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes every day! Because the owners of this country know the truth - it's called the American Dream: because you have to be asleep to believe it."

If Buddy Miles Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right.

One night while watching the Colbert Report with my wife I said that Colbert is a national treasure. And he is.

But I want to riff on something I uncovered during his interview with Bill Maher.

Now it was clearly in jest when Colbert intimated that Maher should come back to the Catholic church.

 “Come on back, Bill. The door is always open. Golden ticket right before you, all you have to do is humble yourself before the presence of the Lord, and admit there are things greater than you in the universe that you do not understand, and salvation awaits you,” Colbert said. “Take Pascal’s wager: If you’re wrong, you’re an idiot, but if I’m right, you’re going to hell.”

It is this, or rather these “greater than you” and “salvation” ideas that I want to flush out a little more. And put in reference to the recent Paris attacks. (Oh and you might check the blog for Pascal.)

Attaching oneself to something greater than you can have profound effects. Alcoholics and drug addicts can cite it as part of their recovery, people can find their calling, etc. 

But isn’t it obvious that there are two sides to that coin? Can’t the profound effects also be negative, as evidenced by terrorism in general and suicide bombings specifically?

Stop. This is not an indictment of Islam. This is skepticism of the idea that accepting something greater than you is always a good thing.

The directions from the voice of something greater than yourself can tell you to do good things like kick alcohol or drugs and support your children but it can also, as George Carlin once quipped, tell you to take a shit on the salad bar at Wendy’s, or as evidenced by 9/11 and Paris, murder people.

Next.

Salvation. How do we know which people are getting it wrong? How do we say that the message from one god is right and the other wrong?

Perhaps this is what Maher and Dennett and Dawkins and Harris (and Hitchens) are getting at; maybe we don’t (gasp) need something greater than ourselves to get by in the world? Maybe we might be a little nicer to our neighbors if we had no supposed moral authority to cite? Maybe we’d be nicer to each other if we recognized that, along with Nietzsche, we are “all too human?” Maybe if salvation was earth/time bound, we would appreciate our finiteness (finitude if you prefer) more and accept at the end of the day that we’ve got to live together.

If Buddy Miles is wrong, I don’t want to be right.