I was shocked, as I think many people were, to wake up to the news today that George Carlin had passed.
I wasn’t a monster Carlin fan, but I had a huge amount of respect for his career and the things that he had accomplished. Carlin was one of the greats, much like Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, and many of the greats that I had grown up with. And in his early 70s, Carlin was still making people laugh. Pryor is unfortunately gone, and Bill Cosby rarely takes to the stage these days for comedy purposes.
Yet Carlin was still going.
I saw George Carlin for the first time in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Sure, I was aware of him prior to that, but the Bill and Ted movie showed me a bit of his unique brilliance.
In recent years, Kevin Smith made sure that the movie going public didn’t forget about George Carlin. His role in Dogma is a personal favorite.
In Bill and Ted terms, Carlin certainly had a “most excellent life.” Yet, I’m not sure we were ready to let him go, just yet.
Here are a couple of tributes (and there are many) that I’ve seen and enjoyed so far.
A video tribute (featuring great stuff from Bill and Ted’s)
Bob Lefsetz shares his Carlin thoughts.
The Onion AV Club – Remembering George Carlin
Former RIP Journalist Lonn Friend sent the following message in a Myspace bulletin…
I met George Carlin once. Not at a gig, or a party, or after a performance in Las Vegas, or at an HBO taping. I met him in a gas station. It was during the RIP years, early 90s. I don’t recall where I was going but I pulled into a station in the Brentwood Village and there he was, at the pump in front of me. The man who taught me the bad words in junior high, who affirmed that it was okay to be a class clown. The stand up genius of perception who sliced and diced the human condition into microscopic bits, drawing conclusions about you and me that ranged from brilliant to the bizarre. “Uh, George, hey, you’re fucking amazing,” I said.
He kinda tweaked his head, and fired back, “Well, you’re pretty cool yourself!”
His HBO specials set the standard for comedians like Lewis Black and Bill Maher to transcend the joke agenda into the stratosphere of sociopolitical satire. Me and my dad went to see Carlin once in Vegas. He was beyond filthy, but like another bastard Godchild, the courageous Robert Schimmel, his dirt was fertile, rich in insight and above all, sprouting with truth. For some reason lately, I’ve been listening to Denis Leary’s No Cure for Cancer, the groundbreaking effort that got me bumped off three affiliates in my Pirate Radio Saturday Night days because I wouldn’t stop playing the song, “Asshole.” Four decades of humor merchants can chart their inspiration directly to comedy’s eternal class clown.
My sense is tonight, the comic community and millions of adoring fans, are mourning the loss of George Carlin in much same loving fashion as politics and mass media assimilated the departure of NBC’s TIm Russert. Two brave, bold hearts just stopped beating. Like that. Or as Rumi would say, like this. “Tonight’s forecast. Dark.” I must have listened to the embryonic LP a thousand times in my room as a kid. Carlin was right along side The Beatles, crafting my early POV of the world and its strange creatures. I was a goofy kid, flirty, four-eyed, late to puberty, early to bed. And many times, to massage me to sleep, I put on albums that made me laugh. George Carlin guided my astral plane on more flights than any other, sending me into dream state with a snicker. In adulthood, he still made me laugh but the chuckles exacted a toll. I had to pay attention, examine what this seer was seeing and do my damndest to see it too. He tore apart the evil doers, the dividers, the unconscious and the idiotic. He had a Henry Miller vocabulary, a Lenny Bruce wit and a Bill Hicks twisted sense of reality. And he was most certainly a poet, a warrior of word play, who revered the English language and manipulated its riches to endless, irreverent ends.
George. you are a hero, an avatar of your craft. Take it from a loyal fan whose occupation has been ‘fool’ for quite some time. Off you go. I’ll bet Russert is pissing his pants right now.
“Excuse me, did you say George Carlin was on his way? Oh baby!”
xL.
George Carlin – Seven Dirty Words
‘Twas a sad day indeed. Carlin was definitely my favourite living comedian, bar none. And seeing as my three favourite comedians of all time are Pryor, Mitch Hedberg and Carlin… well; looks like the laughing might slow down.
man – no doubt…I was thinking the same thing….the greats of my time are passing onward….and also some of the newer young talents like Hedberg, that you mentioned.
On the comedy tip, I’d love to see what Sam Kinison would be doing these days, if he was still around.