I first heard George Carlin at John Oidtman's house in 1976 or thereabouts. I was 11. John's older brother had some Carlin on vinyl and we had to sneak downstairs to listen to it.

This was comedy you had to sneak.

I giggled over the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman, his musings on Irish Catholicism, and his so-so (but so funny) Ed Sullivan impersonation.

But it was the Seven Dirty Words that knocked me backward into the shag carpeting.

I'm certain, at first, it was the shock. "Did he really just say cocksucker? AND tits?"

But there was something glinting beneath the laughs, jagged and dangerous. It was more than outrageousness, more than an in-your-face affront to The Man, more than the funniest thing I'd ever heard in my life.

It was The Truth.

Not the simple truths of childhood detailed by Cosby. Not Newhart's gentle insights into ad men and PR flacks. Not what passed for political jabs on Laugh-In.

This was Truth with a Big T, the kind your parents and the nuns didn't want you to know about. The kind of Truth that made you think--about language, about religion, about what else might be out there to question if you just stopped accepting life at face value.

No small point: Somehow, this was all hilarious.

It goes without saying that generations of comic minds, including most of the ones blogging here, owe a tremendous gratitude to the man.

So thanks, Mr. Carlin. You will be missed. And if there's any way we can piss off the FCC for you, please let us know.