Occupation: Foole

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Occupation: Foole
Live album by
ReleasedOctober 1973
RecordedMarch 2–3, 1973, Circle Star Theater, San Carlos, California
GenreComedy
Length48:03
LabelLittle David/Atlantic
George Carlin chronology
Class Clown
(1972)
Occupation: Foole
(1973)
Toledo Window Box
(1974)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic
[1]

Occupation: Foole is the fifth album released by American comedian

The Little David Years (1971-1977)
box set in 1999.

Much of Occupation: Foole is devoted to Carlin's observations about growing up on the Upper West Side of New York City in the 1950s, covering everything from gang culture to school life. The final track, "Filthy Words", is a continuation and expansion of "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" from his previous album, Class Clown.

When asked in the January 1982 issue of Playboy if any of his albums had been done during a heavy cocaine period, Carlin said, "The Class Clown album was done totally sober. I'd realized what a hell I'd made for myself and I cleaned up completely for three months. You can hear the clarity of my thinking and of my speech on that album. But by the next one, Occupation: Foole, I was right back into the trip again. I'm more frantic, more breathless. You can hear how sick I am. If you want to see a cokehead, just look at the pictures on the Occupation: Foole album. The angles of my body show you an awful lot. I started doing coke to feel open but by that time the hole had opened so wide that I'd fallen through. The body language in those photos tells you everything."

During the performance of his "Filthy Words" routine Carlin was handed a piece of paper by a stage hand, and after reading the paper announced that he had just won the 1973

Grammy award for Best Comedy Recording for his FM & AM
release. The Grammy Awards were being broadcast at the same time he was on stage, and he had not attended because he was contracted to perform the concert which became Occupation Foole on the same night.

The "Filthy Words" routine also became the subject of a complaint made to the United States

Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation
, the Court declared that the FCC has the authority to prohibit broadcasts containing indecent language during hours in which children could be listening.

Track listing

Side one

  1. "Welcome to My Job" - 3:02
  2. "Occupation: Foole" - 3:41
  3. "White Harlem" - 4:45
  4. "The Hallway Groups" - 2:07
  5. "Black Consciousness" - 2:38
  6. "New York Voices" - 7:06

Side two

  1. "Grass Swept the Neighborhood" - 1:25
  2. "Childhood Cliches" - 4:04
  3. "Cute Little Farts" - 5:10
  4. "Raisin Rhetoric" - 2:06
  5. "Filthy Words" - 11:30

References

  1. AllMusic