George Carlin has left the building.
It always comes in threes, doesn't it? The day after I write about the worlds loss of Harvey Korman and Tim Russert, another one of my favorites slips away. I shouldn't even say one of my favorites, I should say "The greatest gift to comedy that there ever was or will be". George Carlin died of heart failure yesterday. It is so hard to describe what Carlin meant to me, in a way, he was my muse. If I was blocked and couldn't write I would pop on some Carlin to clear my head and knock the dust out. George made me want to do stand up comedy and he was the most influential person to my short lived comedy career. He kind of showed me that words are wonderful weapons and, if used properly, could build up or destroy, just about anyone. I had the pleasure of seeing him live a few years ago and couldn't get passed security to actually talk to him. He was amazing, I would have loved to meet him. Usually I try to avoid meeting entertainers I respect because, when you meet them, you invariably lose all respect for them. Carlin wouldn't have been like that he was too real, even on stage, you knew he was just being himself. I found this quote from him,
“I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn’t really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people,”.
That was his answer when a reporter asked him about why he quit working with Jack Burns in the 60's
( It is also a quote that is on my writing room wall, I just want to explain that, those words go through my head before I set foot on a stage to do comedy. I want to make people laugh but I don't want to lower myself to do it. George did help me remember that.) Burns and Carlin had both gone to see Lenny Bruce and Bruce changed Georges perspective on comedy. Carlin could not go on doing clean comedy, even for the paycheck. That is something that, if you can't respect, then you are a douchebag . The world is full of hack comics that just regurgitate the same garbage over and over, tons of noise and very few voices. Now there is one less. I think of all the entertainers in this world, Carlin is the one I deified, gods shouldn't die but, sadly, sometimes they do. Sure he was losing a step in his last few appearances but he was still good, I was gonna get to see him again this October and I was giddy like a dork about it. George was one of a kind, no one could twist words like he could. I am a huge fan of alliteration and you can pretty much hand the to him. After all the plastic people and the newsies have had their time telling us what Carlin meant to them and after the media thoroughly bastardizes his image by calling him buzzwords like "edgy" or "envelope pushing". After the week long newsie love affair with him, wherein people praise his name, even though they couldn't quote a word. After all that, I know myself and several true fans will still be looking toward his bits for inspiration, hell, just for the will to leave the house and piss someone off, which is a reason to leave the house that I live for. Today I am going to walk into a convenience store and shout "Is today Thursday?" and walk right out. That is in tribute to George. I will also use most of the "Incomplete list of impolite words" to describe a person in line at Dairy Queen. As long as I live, I will remember two important quotes.
" Think of how stupid the average person is, now realize that half of them are stupider than that."
and
" I think it is the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately"
Two thoughts that get me through the day. Well George, I don't know if there is an after life but I do hope that if there is you finally found a place for your stuff. The world will miss you. For your sake I hope the Catholics are wrong but if not, I will at least get to meet you in Hell, so that's a bright point, right?
3 comments:
I'll miss that cranky old man... (sniff)
I thought it was funny that on the news they mentioned that the 7 words you can't say on television STILL can't be said on television.
I couldn't remember what the words you couldn't say were, so I wanted to hear them again but I guess the news is more about car bombings, drug busts, war and kittens...
Oh well.
I just watched Bill&Ted's Excellent adventure a few days ago, perhaps that's what killed him.
Bill & Ted didn't kill him, it just nearly killed his credibility. He got it back though.
For you, here it is
I love words. I thank you for hearing my words.
I want to tell you something about words that I think is important.
They're my work, they're my play, they're my passion.
Words are all we have, really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid.
then we assign a word to a thought and we're stuck with that word for
that thought, so be careful with words. I like to think that the same
words that hurt can heal, it is a matter of how you pick them.
There are some people that are not into all the words.
There are some that would have you not use certain words.
There are 400,000 words in the English language and there are 7
of them you can't say on television. What a ratio that is.
399,993 to 7. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous
to be separated from a group that large. All of you over here,you 7,
Bad Words. That's what they told us they were, remember?
"That's a bad word!" No bad words, bad thoughts, bad intentions,
and words. You know the 7, don't you, that you can't say on television?
"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"
Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul,
curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.
"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"
Wow! ...and Tits doesn't even belong on the list. That is such a friendly
sounding word. It sounds like a nickname, right? "Hey, Tits, come here,
man. Hey Tits, meet Toots. Toots, Tits. Tits, Toots." It sounds like a
snack, doesn't it? Yes, I know, it is a snack. I don't mean your sexist
snack. I mean New Nabisco Tits!, and new Cheese Tits, Corn Tits,
Pizza Tits, Sesame Tits, Onion Tits, Tater Tits. "Betcha Can't Eat Just
One." That's true. I usually switch off. But I mean, that word does
not belong on the list. Actually none of the words belong on the list,
but you can understand why some of them are there. I'm not
completely insensitive to people's feelings. I can understand why
some of those words got on the list, like CockSucker and
MotherFucker. Those are heavyweight words. There is a lot going on
there. Besides the literal translation and the emotional feeling.
I mean, they're just busy words. There's a lot of syllables to contend
with. And those Ks, those are aggressive sounds. They just jump out at
you like "coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer. coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer."
It's like an assault on you. We mentioned Shit earlier, and 2 of the
other 4-letter Anglo-Saxon words are Piss and Cunt, which go
together of course. A little accidental humor there. The reason that
Piss and Cunt are on the list is because a long time ago, there were
certain ladies that said "Those are the 2 I am not going to say. I
don't mind Fuck and Shit but 'P' and 'C' are out.", which led to such
stupid sentences as "Okay you fuckers, I'm going to tinkle now."
And, of course, the word Fuck. I don't really, well that's more
accidental humor, I don't wanna get into that now because I think
it takes to long. But I do mean that. I think the word Fuck is a very
imprortant word. It is the beginning of life, yet it is a word we use to
hurt one another quite often. People much wiser than I am said,
"I'd rather have my son watch a film with 2 people making love
than 2 people trying to kill one another. I, of course, can agree. It is
a great sentence. I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but
I like to take it a step further. I'd like to substitute the word Fuck for
the word Kill in all of those movie cliches we grew up with. "Okay,
Sheriff, we're gonna Fuck you now, but we're gonna Fuck you slow."
So maybe next year I'll have a whole fuckin' ramp on the N word.
I hope so. Those are the 7 you can never say on television, under any
circumstanses. You just cannot say them ever ever ever. Not even
clinically. You cannot weave them in on the panel with Doc, and Ed,
and Johnny. I mean, it is just impossible. Forget those 7. They're out.
But there are some 2-way words, those double-meaning words.
Remember the ones you giggled at in sixth grade? "...And the cock
CROWED 3 times" "Hey, the cock CROWED 3 times. ha ha ha ha. Hey, it's in
the bible. ha ha ha ha. There are some 2-way words, like it is okay for
Kirk Youdi to say "Roberto Clametti has 2 balls on him.", but he can't
say "I think he hurt his balls on that play, Tony. Don't you? He's holding
them. He must've hurt them, by God." and the other 2-way word that
goes with that one is Prick. It's okay if it happens to your finger. You
can prick your finger but don't finger your prick. No,no.
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