Of your infamous “Seven Words You Can Never Use on Television,” we hear a couple even on the networks now: piss and tits. Is it time to shorten the list?
You can say pissed off, but you can’t say pissed on, because that’s about the actual act of urination. It’s OK for a guy to say, “Why are you pissed off at me?” But the other guy can’t say, “Because you pissed on me.” So crap, screw, cunt, cocksucker, and motherfucker are still off-limits. Fart, turd, and twat were added to the list later, though you do hear fart. You don’t hear twat very often. Twat is one of those words that doesn’t have another meaning to it. You can say, “We’re gonna snatch that and put him in a box,” but you can’t say twat…

Your new book is called Napalm and Silly Putty. Please explain.
It’s just an indicator of the two sides of my nature. I have a confrontational, aggressive side; then there’s the innocent, childlike side that sometimes people forget. I like making people squirm. I like to find out where their line is drawn and then deliberately cross it and, if possible, pull them across with me.

What trends have you been fed up with lately?
People who wear visors. And guys who wear phone headsets, these cyberdorks walking around like schizophrenic air-traffic controllers talking to themselves.

It’s getting harder to tell who’s crazy and who’s not.
If he’s got a nice leather jacket on, you figure he’s not homeless. What else? Singers with one name. Guys named Todd. I think that’s a goofy fucking name. All these boy names that have come along—Taylor, Tyler, Tucker, Carlson, Cassidy, Cody, Flynn—they’re not real names. A real name is Jim.

You joined the Air Force when you were 17, which is hard to believe. How did that happen?
I quit school after ninth grade, and at that time the draft was in place. To prevent being drafted, you enlisted and you got your military obligation out of the way. I went into the Air Force because, rather than sit in a foxhole and have people dropping bombs on you, better to go drop things on other people and come back and take a shower. But I want people to know that for the three years and one month I was in the Air Force, Russia did not screw with us. So I did help keep the peace.

You were raised Irish Catholic, yet you’re almost happily antireligious.
There is more evidence of the existence of UFOs than the existence of God, yet if you mention that you believe in UFOs, you’re considered a kook. Whereas if you believe in this man in the sky, you’re going down the right path…

Has the human race done anything recently that you approve of?
The agreed-upon self-destruction of our kind is spectacular to watch. This species could have been so great, and now everybody just wants a new SaladShooter or sneakers with lights in them. This is what we’ve settled for. So the things that excite me are the failed nations, these places that can’t be governed anymore because there’s no political or physical infrastructure. I love that. If the seeds of destruction are in it, then I’m really happy about that. This species is circling the drain, and we should be encouraging the circles to become faster and smaller.

You revel in pissing people off. Who has surprised you by laughing?
I did a big attack on golf, but it was more an attack on the upper class’ arrogance in commanding 200 acres for a game that involves a ball one and a quarter inches across. The problem isn’t the game itself—it’s the jerk-offs you have to associate with to play it. I don’t bother with those guys on any basis, much less stand around outdoors with them for three hours. But I’ll occasionally get these guys wearing the golf shirts—“Hey, I love your stuff, George.” I say, “Yeah, how about the golf thing?” People are willing to exempt themselves sometimes: “Well, he’s not talking about us, honey.”

You’re a longtime proponent of making sports more violent. What do you make of the XFL?
I thought they were gonna do it for me, but then I realized that the rules they changed to make it more violent don’t actually come up very often. I have suggestions for changing rules in all sports to make them more interesting. Such as, in basketball, 50 points for any shot that goes in the basket after bouncing off an opponent’s head. And in auto racing, a bonus of $50 million for any driver who completes an entire race going in the wrong direction.

When you hosted the very first Saturday Night Live, did you think it would still be around today?
Nobody knew. I was sort of the middleman, the liaison between these brash young improv players and this studio crew who didn’t buy into that. But I don’t remember much about that week because I was loaded on cocaine the whole time. A book said that they had to break down my door to get me out of my hotel room. Those are the kinds of details you forget.

Surprisingly, for someone as, um, mellow as you, you’ve had three heart attacks. Do you have sympathy for Vice President Dick Cheney?
Not really. You know what he looks like? When he’s answering questions, he looks like he’s smelling a big pile of human waste.

How would you like to depart this rotten world?
I’d just like to explode in someone’s living room. Or it would be nice to be thrown out of a helicopter. But my stipulation would be that wherever I land, you have to leave me there. Even if it’s the mayor’s lawn.