George Carlin
One of the unalloyed joys (really) of being in show business is getting to meet and know people you've admired. I grew up listening to George Carlin, admiring the way he injected intelligence and daring into the world of standup comedy. Along with Richard Pryor and Albert Brooks, Carlin helped revolutionize the genre.
Then a few years ago, much too late, we met in professional circumstances: I was interviewing him on the occasion of a new book of his. We shared the stage for a couple of hours, and continued our chat backstage afterwards. We had a few more phone conversations since then, too few, and I marveled at the quality that I've come to admire more than most others in this business: his persistence. George seemed to love what he did, and so he kept doing it at a very high level. See his remarkable standup poem "Modern Man" for one of the most recent examples.
George grew tougher and sharper over the years, putting more of himself, and his intellect, at the service of his always nimble, always adventurous comedy mind. And, while his comedy was dark, his spirit with his peers was generous.
He was named recently as this year's recipient of the Mark Twain Award. Although the presentation was scheduled for November, the announcement came in time for George to know of the honor.
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The two great comedians of my life both had "Car" in their names:
Carson and Carlin
One of the last of the rebels. Not just our greatest comedian, our greatest poet-laureat of seeing humor in life and reality. No one could touch Carlin.
Dear George,
We'll #$@N@(>: miss you!
:00)
Carlin always said that if had never offended you, it was just because he hadn't gotten to you yet.
A true genius in a time when the term "genius" is overused.
It is hard to believe, my favorite Comedian is no more. I recently watched him on HBO> I also saw him satting that he does not belive in politics. What a brilliant minde taht would have been very helpful in the coming election! Tellin as it is, and why all of us pay attention, in these times God bless his soul.
There is an outpouring of feelings for Carlin. People really liked his hard-hitting humor and I'm one of them. But, sorry to say, there's no way that tv's going to devote as much time to mourning him as it did for Russert. I suppose tv must really have appreciated his outing of Valerie Plame !
I wonder, did george 'hear' the 'two minute warning' before he died. Did he have the chance to tell any one near, 'shiiiit, I really heard the bell, man'. maybe he heard the DING, 'two minutes, get your shit together'
There is not a single politician or movie star, I would waste my time with. not one. I wouldn't walk across the street to meet any of them.
George Carlin, I have listen to his comedy, read his books, and dropped everything to catch a glimpse of him when we was on TV. I missed him and his humor, when he was alive, because he was just not on TV enough. I am in true morning now that he has passed. I do not believe there is a week that goes by that I am not faced with a situation, and I hear his voice in my head, reminding me of some bit or another from his comedy.
The one person i would have put effort into meeting, I never had the chance to.
He was the iconoclast's iconoclast.
This Irish New York street kid didn't take shit from anybody and he didn't suffer fools gladly, but madly.....often very madly.
His weapons were his wit and an ability to turn a phrase so speedily from cliche to truth, it made your head spin.
Once he took on the sheer madness of the dumb americans he humorously chastised, this hippie-dippie class clown never compromised his need for telling us the Truth; even when society treated him as stupidly as he predicted they would.
At least two generations have grown up during George Carlin's career and those of us who were lucky enough to understand his hilarious--yet often deadly serious--warnings have become more educated, more disrespectful, more angry and more conscious of the absurdities of our everyday life that most people who didn't understand his message never question.
The irrepressible atheist he was once said this: "When it comes to God's existence, I'm not an atheist and I'm not an agnostic. I'm an acrostic. The whole thing puzzles me."
I'm not sure about whether God or gods exist either, but if they do, I'd like to think that right now, those deities know that George Carlin was about the Truth of our lives that many people never face.
So if this is the case and the God or those gods do really exist, I just know that today George Denis Patrick Carlin is already givin' 'em hell in heaven!
Don't lose your edge, George. Even The Big Boss gets stuffy and needs a chuckle, now and then.
Peace (the real thing, for a change).
... and thanks.
My kid was raised on George Carlin, and countless other comedians and comediennes to whom I am eternally grateful. It started when he caught a few minutes of one of George Carlin's specials , and he begged us to let him continue watching. He was so voraciously intellectually hungry, that we knew to deny him would be to shut down a budding aspect of his personality. The small kid fare they were offering up for his age group was mind-numbing, so we decided to watch it with him to put the words and concepts into context.
We discussed George's rage and how he used it for positive purposes. How he took apart cognitive dissonances. How words are all about discretion in how you use them with the ultimate goal being communication; realizing that you may alienate people you like and love if you use them indiscriminately or to be hurtful, and you may not be effective in your advocacy of your position if you misuse them.
As smart as he is, he got it immediately, and never used the words inappropriately at school or with his friends, but he was immensely enriched. We knew he was going to hear them anyway, and it would be better if he knew the whole story. I'm sure my son is smarter and more engaged for the hours spent laughing with George.
Thank you, Mr. Carlin, for being a part of our family hour. We'll miss you.
Wow. You have to be the coolest parent(s) ever.
George, Well, I guess by now, you know whether you were right about God, and Heaven and Hell, and the after life...I just want to thank you, for the many hours of laughter you gave me ever since I heard Class Clown for the first time way back in 1973...And more importantly, your comedy, while it made me laugh, it also made me think, and I thank you for that as well...I do hope you were wrong about God and Heaven, and that you're up there right now...God Bless you George...
A truly sad day...another American Icon and link to Leny gone.
The godfather of observational comedy standup.
I thought Carlin was an astonishing comedian and actor; I always loved his warped thought processes and how they really ultimately made sense. However in the last few years I found him less and less funny, just vituperative. I turned off his HBO special because it was making me extremely sad to see such a very talented artist become an angry and bitter man. I'll always remember the fine and progressive comedian he was rather than the increasingly misanthropic individual I saw in the last years of his life.
Last night my older son and I were watching" Bobby" on HBO because I could not bring myself to watch it previously--sad traumatic memories as a l6 year-old--and just as the film ends on that intensely tragic note, son goes online and shouts that George Carlin is dead. It really hit me hard because I not only felt Ihad grown up with him, but he inspired me in ways too lengthy and personal herein, Back in the early days of FM in '67, I heard a cut from AM/FM and ran to Radio Doctors Record store in downtown Milwaukee to buy it. I played the grooves out--Biff Burns, Al Sleet the Hippy Dippy Weatherman (with all the hippy dippy weather, man), Wonderful WINO-- in Western Walla Walla, and his takes on radio, TV soaps, game shows, (the elderly Queen for a Day contestant of myriad tragic circumstances who wanted an outboard motorboat and a set of skis if she won), the news, ("There was another senseless killing as police today discovered the body of Irving Senseless lying in his driveway"), the 7 words bit that confirmed Milwaukee's fascist Mayor Maier as Little Daley Junior, stuff, his prophetic angry rails against advertising, politics and the Catholic Church. We will never see another one like him. May he RIP and keep God amused.
NBC just spent a week with tributes to the one man who consistently asked tough questions of our politicians on national TV - Tim Russert.
It pointed up the failure of the news industry that we should have just one person who was doing that as well, as fairly, and as intelligently as Russert did.
Now, it is time for a TV-wide tribute to George Carlin.
He was the one comedian who truly took on politicians and the public, in a truly humorous way, for so many things.
He was the under-appreciated Greek chorus for our nation.
By the way, he never worried about global warming hurting the planet. Basically, he figured the people would disappear but the planet would be fine. He was hoping people would see what they were doing to themselves.
Of course, his classic comedic routines on traveling, taking smaller and smaller amounts of stuff with you along the way, and on sports, football is played on a gridiron where bombs are thrown in an air attack to crush your opponent while baseball is played in a park where all they want to do is go home and be safe are among the reasons he has been uniquely treasured.
To all those who loved George's mind, heart, funny bone, and brilliant on-stage delivery of his genius, I send mine. Just for him, let's all have a good laugh about our society.
I was wondering if anyone would make the comparison with Russert.
Personally, I had no interest in the MSM circle jerk over that 'great loss'.
George Carlin's death is a great loss.
I can't think of the last time I felt a similar loss over the death of an
entertainer/teacher/philosopher.
Thank you George, for making us a little more human, whatever that
means.
Can't add much to what has already been said other than the impressions I'm left with by the man and his work. There's no sense in nitpicking about Lenny Bruce here; Carlin was clearly influenced and spurred on by Lenny and was really nothing less than an heir to the path blazed by him.
In spite of each comedian's individual differences in stand-up style and content, they both were committed to showing up the hypocrisies inherent in our institutions and forcing all who listened to sometimes think as hard as they laughed.
And just in case some misguided soul starts harping on the sins of either Bruce or Carlin, may your glass house be showered with the stones of your own truth -- that is, if you can "handle" it or, better yet laugh at and with it (I'm thinking of an old George Will hatchet job on Ferlinghetti wherein he spoke of the North Beach neighborhood that's also home to City Lights being noteworthy above all else as the place where Lenny Bruce fell out a window in a drug-induced stupor).
Thanks George, for showing me the right way to grow old.
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