Complaints and Grievances is the 17th album and 12th HBO stand-up special by comedian George Carlin. It was nominated for the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album.[1]
The working title of the show was I Kinda Like It When a Lot of People Die, but it was changed after the September 11 2001 attacks.[2] In an interview on Opie and Anthony on October 24, 2001, Carlin explained:
It's gonna be good, though. It's a strong show. I had to make a few alterations 'cause—you wanna hear the name of what the show was called and I'm telling you the truth? ... The name of it was I Kinda Like It When a Lot of People Die. Yeah. And it was all about natural disasters and stuff and I had a nice nine minute piece on that but the morning I woke up and saw the special effects thing on the TV I thought "Oh yeah. Oh. Change. Changing the name."
After briefly explaining the nature of the show, Carlin added, "Everything's the same, except I had to take that piece out. I just knew ... no-one would laugh. You know. Obviously."[3]
Complaints and Grievances was recorded live at the Beacon Theatre in New York City on November 17, 2001, and was broadcast live on HBO.[4]
Cassette recordings of the original working version of the show, recorded in Las Vegas on September 9 and 10, 2001, were discovered in the 2010s and released in 2016 as I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die.[5] The album includes the routine removed from Complaints and Grievances, titled "Uncle Dave".[6] A recording of the first performance of the routine from June 2001 is also included as a bonus track, under its original title of "I Kinda Like It When a Lotta People Die".[7] Portions of this routine were later reused for "Coast-to-Coast Emergency", the closing bit from Carlin's 2005 special Life Is Worth Losing.[6]
All tracks by George Carlin.