A bit of Carlin genius...

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

Now I've mentioned football. Baseball and football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And, as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something 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 recieve 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.

Football is played in any kind of weather: Rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog...can't see the game, don't know if there is a game going on; mud on the field...can't read the uniforms, can't read the yard markers, the struggle will continue!
In baseball if it rains, we don't go out to play. "I can't go out! It's raining out!"

Baseball has the seventh-inning stretch.
Football has the two-minute warning

Baseball has no time limit: "We don't know when it's gonna end!"
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end "even if we have to go to sudden death."

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling. Emotions may run high or low, but there's not that much unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you were perfectly capable of taking the life of a fellow human being





And finally, the objectives of the the two games are completely different:



In football, the object is for the quarterback, otherwise known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his recievers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! "I hope I'll be safe at home!"

[For PaisAn]

1. I love Carlin

Thanks for posting. We're going to see him in a few weeks.

[BrainRants]

2. Did anyone catch him on Russert

this weekend? (The MSNBC version of his show) Carlin was BRILLIANT in the way he presented his religious beliefs in a logical, well thought out manner. Russert asked some good questions and (horrors!) followup questions too. (Why can't he do that with someone other than a comedian?)

Anyways, I'm sure there were a few wingnuts having seizures as Carlin called it like he saw it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, my handle is a knockoff of Carlin's book "Brain Droppings" and Dennis Miller's "Rants" (back when Miller used to be a freakin Democrat, and was actually funny)

[Zomby Woof]

6. Miller was never a Democrat

In 1995, Michael Douglas was Miller's guest on his HBO show, and the topic was "Is Liberalism Dead?" Douglas was the guest because he is liberal, and ribbed Miller for "being my favorite fascist in Hollywood"... folks, it is time to lay the myth to rest that Miller was ever one of us. 1995. Back when he was putting out those books... Douglas wouldn't have called him a fascist without some inside knowledge of Miller's politics.

I think he was always a wingnut, he just hid it out of cowardice, until Bush made fascism fashionable.

[mcscajun]

3. and it's even better when you can listen to him...

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor7.shtml

the Real Audio link is on the left hand bottom of the page. :)

[zacho]

4. SNL right?

That was his SNL monologue right?

[Semi_subversive]

5. Classic routine

Still love it. I remember seeing him perform live at American River College (Sacramento) back in the mid-70s.