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George Carlin, 71.

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05:02 / 23.06.08

I just found out on metafilter that George Carlin is dead.

His rant about abortion.(NSFW)

I'll miss him.

05:31 / 23.06.08

Actually, the whole show is worth watching. (NSFW)

06:23 / 23.06.08

And yet, Dane Cook is still alive.

There is no justice in the universe...

RIP, George. Give God the finger for us.

09:00 / 23.06.08

Rest in peace. Here's hoping he'll get to heaven and meet his God - the sun with Joe Pesci's face.

The Natural Way

12:19 / 23.06.08

He's obviously very excellent and I'm pleased he graced this sphere, etc., etc...

But he does belong to that school of political comedy that's all about the whooping and 'FUCK YEAH!'s. Stand-ups like Carlin are more like cheerleaders for ideologies than comedians, and, personally speaking this stuff always leaves me a little cold. He's bright, a wit, and on the side of the angels, sure, but he's never made me belly laugh.

13:15 / 23.06.08

I liked his act around the time of Class Clown and a bit afterwards -- not specifically the 7 words stuff, but other stuff around language and some more cotidian and silly boyish charm material. I thought the Golf War days had him on some good moments here and there, and the late nineties had some very rare moments that could actually hit me with a gut laugh. The god jokes could hit something funny very rarely when he was on that 'preach it!' mode -- but his older jokes on religion had more of a sense of a childish curiosity in poking funny holes that I find it to hit better notes instead of his moments of screaming about how religious people are "teh fucking stupid!!!!!".

But, yeah, recently it mostly became a full on beyond-tired "fuck yeah"-ness (just listen to the crowd at the video posted above. I mean, really, Jesus Christ...) and at times full on "You know what I hate?" until it became to the point where it's reactionary nonsense shit ("what the fuck is up with guys named Todd? What happened to manly names like Steve?" or some shit like that).

But it's a shame to see him go.

13:29 / 23.06.08

I saw Carlin 2 years ago in Ottawa. The crowd was mostly in their late forties or early fiftys and affluent. The audience's attitude (and comments I overheard after) was seemingly summed up by, "Oh", what is he going to say to shock us this time? He is so scandalous..."
...
And that was exactly the show he gave. He played right into the saying-something-dirty-to-shock-the-rich-white-people schtick. I was both happy to have had the chance to have seen him and sad to realise that he was way past his prime and wasn't really trying anymore. His comedy no longer threw on any light-switches in people's heads, it seemed. Maybe it never really did, but I remember my first brushes with his work seemed to open my mind a fair bit.
I'll always think of him as one of the best.
R.I.P.

16:01 / 23.06.08

I think, like many artists, the switches he flicked became unflickable due to how hard he'd already flicked them.

Tortured metaphor notwithstanding, I think he made a lot of great points early. Lie anyone, he was slowly getting out of stuff. No comedian lasts forever, and while he lasted a lot longer than most, he was no different.

I think of bands I've loved as well, whose initial impact on me can never really be replicated, or films that can never be as mindblowing as they first were.

He has a bit about dead folks, like Hendrix or Cobain. He suggests tht wondering what they might have done had they lived could be missing the point; maybe they were out of stuff. Maybe they died at just the right time.
I guess you could make an argument George lived too long, but you wouldn't catch me making it. He'd prolly laugh if you did, though.

For recent awesome, there's his Modern Man slam-rant. I liked it so much it's become the vocal on a track on my label.

02:35 / 24.06.08

He was the camper van on Cars.

I first heard him on a Tonight Show album that my parents had - a track after Lenny Bruce talking about airplane glue. Carlin's bit was about how he and his buddies tried calling their neighborhood "white Harlem" to sound tough, and included his impression of listening to a Spanish radio broadcast of a baseball game. I think it was this vintage. Yeah, that's Flip Wilson. Second half here.

They're hip. And cynical. And freaky (in the "freak" sense).

02:44 / 24.06.08

From a YouTube comment:

He lived in a mansion and championed Marxism.
Carlin endorsed the murdering of the unborn. It's not surprising that the tattooed ninnies of You-Tube support this fiend.

Amen, tattooed ninnies.

16:44 / 24.06.08

And Seinfeld on Carlin:

Every comedian does a little George. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’ve been standing around with some comedians and someone talks about some idea for a joke and another comedian would say, “Carlin does it.” I’ve heard it my whole career: “Carlin does it,” “Carlin already did it,” “Carlin did it eight years ago.”

07:30 / 25.06.08

But he does belong to that school of political comedy that's all about the whooping and 'FUCK YEAH!'s. Stand-ups like Carlin are more like cheerleaders for ideologies than comedians, and, personally speaking this stuff always leaves me a little cold. He's bright, a wit, and on the side of the angels, sure, but he's never made me belly laugh.

That presumes there's a different school, first of all. Did you expect hour-long didactic lectures on the state of affairs and how rich white bastards manipulate the stock exchange, etc.?

Comedy, or at least good comedy, is truth in miniature, and I think the argument could easily be made that the best comedians, from Lenny Bruce, to George Carlin, to Richard Pryor, to Bill Hicks, to even Jon Stewart have been to one extent or another "cheerleaders for ideologies". Carlin succeeded at it far more than most, and he was spot-on the very, very vast majority of the time.

So maybe it occasionally is a 'fuck yeah' moment. The implication that this is automatically catering to the lowest common denominator, though, seems flawed.

10:01 / 25.06.08

Did you expect hour-long didactic lectures on the state of affairs and how rich white bastards manipulate the stock exchange, etc.?

Errmm, ever seem Mark Thomas? He makes it work. And has knob gags, too. But yeah, after having only become acquainted with Carlin after his death, this is a shame.

12:32 / 25.06.08

I think (based on the thirty secs of the link that I could bear to watch at the top of the thread), that it's probably a good thing that this one guy's apparently now, currently, exploring other dimensions, of sex.

12:44 / 25.06.08

Errmm, ever seem Mark Thomas? He makes it work. And has knob gags, too.

Dude, that's so 1997

12:47 / 25.06.08

1997, when everything went wrong.

14:14 / 25.06.08

I think (based on the thirty secs of the link that I could bear to watch at the top of the thread), that it's probably a good thing that this one guy's apparently now, currently, exploring other dimensions, of sex.

I don't see how that follows, but I would love to see you explain.

16:20 / 25.06.08

That presumes there's a different school, first of all.

The other thing here is that Carlin's act is very rehearsed - there's no sense that he's riffing off the audience reaction, just repeating his own script verbatim. Which doesn't work for me so much, and is part of what adds to that thing of preaching to the converted. Like a crowd bursting into applause at the intro to a tune that they already know, *because* they already know it.

18:38 / 25.06.08

I don't get what he's meant to have done to avoid the cheerleader criticism. Is he meant to have said stuff his audience wouldn't like?

I think most folks go to see a comic they agree with. I can't think of many comedians who don't get a 'yeah' during a show. Preaching to the converted is only possible once they've been converted. And who converted them? They're Carlin fans, or 'converts', because he made them laugh before.

The idea that comedians are sticking it to the man, or speaking truth to power is alluring. I don't know how true it is, though, or how often. It's hard to judge carlin at this end of the career, when every show was a sellout, filled with the converted.
The people who pay for a ticket to see someone crack jokes are going because they know roughly what to expect from it. They gamble the money because they like what they expect and expect to be entertained by it.
It's not the only one, but I think it's a valid reason to go to a show.

I don't think Carlin is any less a master of his profession because his audience largely share his politics. He may even have given them the inspiration to form their ideas in teh first place.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:04 / 25.06.08

I am reminded of that very inspirational episode of "Preacher" where Jesse meets Bill Hicks.

Now, Bill Hicks. There was a rebel.

02:16 / 26.06.08

Yes, we all know your love of Bill Hicks, and his ground-breaking comedy.

As far as George Carlin goes, the first I heard him was in the late 70s when my older brother got a copy of AM/FM, which we listened to repeatedly, of course the seven dirty words were a fascinating forbidden fruit, and the hippy-dippy weatherman was a big hit with the kids, too. He was, for the time, I think a somewhat original comic, his shtick of examining language the way he did was unique enough to be memorable, and his iconoclasm enough to be scintillating. He did tend to get tediously preachy over time, and he was one of those intolerantly unforgiving people about some things. I pretty much agree with much of what he said about religion, say, but he didn't qualify his vitriol too much in his diatribes. Don't know if qualification makes good comedy, but I think it can.
I'll miss him, mostly because of the nostalgia, and he seemed like a bright enough and funny man.

03:06 / 26.06.08

his last interview - for, of all things, psych today!

17:58 / 26.06.08

I don't see how that follows, but I would love to see you explain.

Well, he's shuffled off the mortal coil. Perhaps where he is now there are co-eds who are happy enough to perform certain grim operations while balancing a bottle of Bud on their heads.

Really, what's next? A celebration of the complete works of Andrew Dice Clay?

Is he meant to have said stuff his audience wouldn't like?

Well, yeah. That's sort of his job. Anyone with a loud voice and a certain amount of stage presence can, in theory, find work in stand-up comedy, but that doesn't mean they should try. The proper comedian attacks him or herself first, and then the audience, and then society, in that order

18:23 / 26.06.08

Pretty narrow view of stand-up there, AG...
I look forward to reading "Alex's Grandma's Concise Rules for Stand-Up Comedy" when it hits the bookshelves. I for one look forward for uniform comedy standards. I mean if there are no rules... *shudder*...

Regrettable Juvenilia

19:25 / 26.06.08

Whether AG is right or wrong in this specific instance, freektemple, suggesting there are certain rules for different genres and media of art and entertainment does not make one an authoritarian greyface.

Anyway, back to George Carlin.

Onion: I was reading your web site [georgecarlin.com], and you referred to George W. Bush as a fascist. But you don't vote. Why not vote against someone you think is a fascist?

GC: Well, because it wouldn't make any difference. When fascism comes to this country, it won't be wearing jackboots; it'll be wearing sneakers with lights in them, and it'll have a smiley face and a Michael Jordan T-shirt on. They learned the mistake of overt control. They've learned how to be much subtler. No, I don't think my vote would mean anything, and at the same time, it would make me very untrue to myself to participate in what I really think is a charade.

November 10th, 1999

Loved him as Rufus, but boy, how wrong can I guy be?

19:48 / 26.06.08

No no, AG's right-

The proper comedian attacks him or herself first, and then the audience, and then society, in that order

I distinctly remember encountering a similar prhasing of the rule in that book by Aristotle I read before me and Sean Connery ran out of the burning library.

(By the way, trying to seduce a Germanic peasant? Recite the Song of Solomon; she'll melt like butter)

04:13 / 27.06.08

GC: Well, because it wouldn't make any difference. When fascism comes to this country, it won't be wearing jackboots; it'll be wearing sneakers with lights in them, and it'll have a smiley face and a Michael Jordan T-shirt on. They learned the mistake of overt control. They've learned how to be much subtler. No, I don't think my vote would mean anything, and at the same time, it would make me very untrue to myself to participate in what I really think is a charade.

November 10th, 1999

Loved him as Rufus, but boy, how wrong can I guy be?

The fascism charge might be a bit strong, but I don't see how he was essentially wrong otherwise.

04:20 / 27.06.08

At the very least, and it hasn't been mentioned yet, the man deserves credit for having had brand new material every single time he did a show, something most other comedians have said they wouldn't stand a chance of doing.

Regrettable Juvenilia

18:32 / 27.06.08

The fascism charge might be a bit strong, but I don't see how he was essentially wrong otherwise.

Have you been asleep for the past 8 years? You honestly don't think the Bush administration has exercised a considerable degree of over control, and has proven to be a much greater threat than MTV or whatever Carlin was on about with all that "Michael Jordan t-shirt" bollocks*? Let's face it: the 2000 election caught the quintessentially 90s pseudo-alternative barely-liberal slightly-counter-culture napping, and Carlin's failure to recognise that life would be any different under Bush is eblematic of that lack of foresight.

*There's a reading of this that's more troubling still - sneakers? Michael Jordan? - but I won't pursue it.

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

19:32 / 27.06.08

sounded to me like he was saying "America doesn't try to take over your country any more, they just sell you coke and mcdonald's to death until they win".

which might have seemed like the direction we were going after the cold war...but was blatantly not a strategy GWB favored.

Regrettable Juvenilia

20:10 / 27.06.08

Both your reading comprehension skills and your knowledge of American foreign policy in the 1990s are woefully lacking.

21:18 / 27.06.08

*There's a reading of this that's more troubling still - sneakers? Michael Jordan? - but I won't pursue it.

I think he was talking about corporate consumer culture and Wal-mart (whose logo is a smiley face). What do you suppose helped set the cultural stage for the Bush takeover?

Since I suspect you might be suggesting here that it was some kind of racist/classist remark, remember that many rich white people wear Air Jordan T-shirts and light-up Nike sneakers. They're usually the only ones who can afford them.

That being said, I do agree that it was extremely irresponsible for Carlin to attempt to pretty much discourage folks form voting. It's that whole "It's all just Coke vs. Pepsi" mindset that put Bush in office in the first place.

21:27 / 27.06.08

Well, he's shuffled off the mortal coil. Perhaps where he is now there are co-eds who are happy enough to perform certain grim operations while balancing a bottle of Bud on their heads.

Really, what's next? A celebration of the complete works of Andrew Dice Clay?

I'm puzzled. How did you get this from watching thirty seconds of that link?

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:24 / 27.06.08

I think we can all agree that the interpretation in which the person we like espouses the beliefs we hold is right. I am honestly unsure why we are still talking about this.

01:53 / 28.06.08

I just thought he was funny.
I liked his rant on abortion, though it did veer towards dodgy, because it said, rather loudly, a bunch of stuff I believe. I also thought it was funny.
It's nice when stuff I find funny and things I believe collude, and it's fairly rare. I thought the line about preborn vs preschool was great for that shit. LOL, etc.

I wouldn't have elected the guy. I just liked to hear him speak.

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