RIP, George Carlin

"Shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfcuker tits."

Wow. Well, he was 71 and had some hard living under his belt, so why be shocked? Still, though... celebrities die all the time, many of them at normal dying age as George did, and a person's celebrity value (in my opinion) contributes no weight to the degree of their loss as it should be assessed by those who do did not actually know them. All death is sad - not tragic, at least not once a person has aged to within striking distance of the normally accepted death years, because we've all got to go - but some deaths inspire the few of us who think a little bit from time to time and ponder the contribution the newly dead may have made to us personally. And that's why I'm writing this, to document the fact that George Carlin, a mere comic by trade, was so good at his craft and so poignant with his messages, influenced my tastes and preferences in everything from comedy to politics to my general disposition. And if you know me, you're (perhaps painfully) aware of my general disposition. Maybe he's also at least partly responsible for influencing my longwinded verbosity. Yeah. Let's blame him for that. He's no longer around to defend himself, and that's the American way, blaming the guy who's no longer around.

When I was ten, in fifth grade, I earned my first money by helping my mother clean office buildings, mostly offices for large construction companies. The jobs usually took an hour or two and she gave me five bucks. With that money, I bought records and candy bars. At that age, the first time I walked into a record store and bought stuff with my own money that I'd worked for... to your surprise, it was not Bruce Springsteen or Bob Dylan. It was Richard Pryor's Live on the Sunset Strip on vinyl, and George Carlin's A Place For My Stuff on cassette. I was ten and I was hooked. He spoke in a series of delightfully direct, informed, opinionated, and sensical yet provocative missives. That worked for me as much then as it does now, and all twenty-seven years in between. He was appropriately inappropriate. I wore that tape out, Jack.

George Carlin influenced, even changed, the way I think and see things, how I contextualize our world, society, religious and governmental hustlers, linguistics, racism, feminist hypocrites, and people in general. He knocked the "observational comedy" genre out of the park before anyone had even used the term. He didn't push the envelope. He shoved it. And not gratuitously for the sake of it. He did it in the course of being ridiculously, pee-your-pants, need-a-hanky, make-you-think-but-not-too-much, funny.

Now, I could review his material and issue a list of quotes, but that would take a long time, plus the well, I assure you, is virtually bottomless, and the text is incomplete without the delivery. I won't expect you to run out and buy his stuff on video, DVD, CD, book, album and cassette, although you'd be better for it. So here are some clips. Rest In Peace, Good Man. You pushed all the right buttons, made me a better person, and I can't be the only one.

The Hippy Dippy Weather Man, 1966:


The Seven Words:


1965:


Baseball vs. Football:


With Flip Wilson on the Tonight Show, 1971:


Religion: