Brain Droppings by George Carlin

the strange and restless castoffs and rolling stones who proved such an ill fit back home. God bless them all, and give them all the guns they want.
    Two other things that contribute to violence are religion and government, because they seek to repress and regulate natural impulses like sex and self-gratification. Of course, the two of them will always try to scapegoat movies and television. The truth is, no one knows enough or cares enough to stop the real violence, so their answer is to tone down the pretend violence. It’s superstition: “Maybe if we tone down the pretend violence, the real violence will go away. Or not seem so bad.”
    And maybe the father who forbids his son to watch violent television will not beat the shit out of him when he disobeys.
Maybe.
I”
    A man is seated in a football stadium with a small TV set tuned to the game. The sideline camera takes his picture, and his image travels through the lens, out of the camera, to the truck, to the satellite, to a ground station several miles away, back into the air, and to the man’s TV set.
    He sees himself on the screen. The image travels from his eyes to his brain. His brain sends a signal to his arm to start waving. The image travels to the camera, through the lens, to the truck, to the satellite, to another ground station a thousand miles away where it is
    EORGE CARLIN
:ransmitted into the air and picked up by a cable company that nds it to the man’s parents’ TV set.
    The image travels from the screen to his mother’s eyes, along the >tic nerve to her brain, where it references her memory and recog-tion takes place. Her brain then sends a series of signals to her ngs, throat, lips, and tongue, and she says, “Look, it’s Mike!”
Baseball is different from any other sport; very different.
    For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs.
    In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball inten- tionally, he’s out; sometimes unintentionally, he’s out.
    Also: In football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball, and without the ball you can’t score. In baseball the ball prevents you
from scoring.
    In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager; and only in baseball does the manager (or coach) wear the same clothing the players do. If you had ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders football uniform, you would know the reason for this custom.
Now, I’ve mentioned football. Baseball and football arel
K the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And,r
as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something)
    brain droppings
about ourselves and our values. And maybe how those values have changed over the last 150 years. For those reasons, I enjoy comparing baseball and football:
Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game. Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.
    Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!
    Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.
Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life. Football begins in the fall, when everything is dying.
In football you wear a helmet. In baseball you wear a cap.
Football is concerned with downs. “What down is it?” Baseball is concerned with ups. “Who’s up? Are you up? I’m not up! He’s up!”
In football you receive a penalty. In baseball you make an error.
In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.
Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting, and unnecessary roughness. Baseball has the sacrifice.
    GEORGE C A R L I N
    Football is played in any kind of weather: