You Are All Diseased (audio)

George Carlin spends an hour targeting a culture paralyzed by artificial anxieties and sanitized language. He zeroes in on the exact mechanisms of American fear, pulling apart the obsession with germs, the theater of airport security, and the rise of helicopter parenting. It is a set built entirely on rejecting the idea that anything needs to be safe.

Recorded at the Beacon Theater in New York City in 1999, the album finds Carlin deep into the late-career stride where he abandoned pure observation for broad complaints about society. The show’s anchor is his prolonged attack on religion and marketing, culminating in an explanation of why he prays to actor Joe Pesci instead of God. Carlin strings together rapid-fire corporate speak in his “Advertising Lullaby” bit to point out how easily people digest nonsense. The broadcast version of the hour earned two Emmy nominations and cemented the combative tone he maintained for the rest of his working life.