The Associated Press is reporting the death of George Carlin. He was 71 years old. The cause of death was heart failure. Heart problems had plagued George over the last twenty or twenty-five years.
I love George Carlin. He is my preferred philosopher of language. He has been my favorite professor on faith. He has tutored my search for what is real and valuable in life.
If you are the kind of person that has been offended by George's choice of words, I feel sorry for you. If you are the kind of person that has been insulted by George's view of organized religion, you haven't paid close enough attention. If you think George was a bad guy, please go away.
George started out as a comedian tame enough to be acceptable to the Ed Sullivan Show, the definition of middle-American sensibilities. It didn't work for him. He was bigger than that. He had greater work to do.
1972 was George's year. By then, the suit was in the closet and the beard, blue jeans and t-shirt were all in place. In January, FM & AM was released. It can legitimately be called the first Carlin album. But it was September's Class Clown that brought the United States Government to its knees. All because of 7:03 of very adult humor that ended the album: "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." No, it was not titled "Seven Dirty Words." The routine did get blown up into "Filthy Words" on 1973's "Occupation: Foole." George was arrested in Wisconsin for a live performance of "Seven Words." The case was dismissed as a violation of his First Amendment rights. It was an FCC complaint against WBAI for playing "Filthy Words" that showed how our government couldn't care less about our Constitution. The Supreme Court upheld the FCC ruling, 5-4, calling George's performance "indecent but not obscene." And so, not for the first time and surely not the last, the United States Government declared itself afraid of words.
This was all very sexy to a twelve year old. I was learning, that summer of 1973, that Presidents could be crooks, and liars, and the Watergate tapes would prove all of that and more. And that a corrupt government still had time to be scared of a comedian, all because of words.
In later bits, Carlin reflected on the reality that words carry precisely and only the meaning we assign to them. And so, there are no "dirty" words; only our thoughts behind them. This is the greatest contribution that George Carlin made to our culture: do we people of the Declaration and the Constitution mean it? Do we believe in freedom of thought and expression? And do we get it, that those protections were written in precisely to protect UNpopular speech. Because you don't have to protect popular speech.
George challenged religion. How's that for understatement? He taught me long ago that if I was going to be anything more than a Mother Goose, I better know what matters about my faith; I better know what people can count on in it; I better have something substantial when the hell of life hits people in my care right in the faith. 'Cause "It'll all be better by and by" is a royal load of crap, and if you dish that garbage out, you get what you deserve.
Was there ever a better, more inspired moment of casting than Kevin Smith's brilliant placement of George Carlin in the Bishops' gear for the unveiling of the Buddy Christ in Dogma? That ridiculous, surfer-tanned, grinning, pointing, thumbs-up Jesus was everything George decried in his comedy, everything that is deadly about the church summed up in one godawful icon!
George challenged our rampantly materialistic culture in one of his greatest routines, "A Place for Your Stuff." Through George's eyes, American life is all about accumulating larger and larger receptacles for our stuff. And he's right, in many ways.
I could ramble on through the many phases (Hippy Dippy Weatherman, defender of Ali [The government wanted him to change jobs. The government wanted him to kill people. Ali said, "I'll beat them up, but I'm not going to kill them." The government said, "If you won't kill them, we won't let you beat them up!" Brilliant and priceless!], drug jokes, political pieces, total misanthropy) and praise so many bits ("Baseball and Football" was always big for me; his "People I Can Do Without" pretty much matched my list; "Euphemisms" is even more on target now than when it was released in 1990). But this is all the public George, the iconoclastic George.
George Carlin was married in 1961 to his beloved Brenda. Their daughter, Kelly, was born in 1963. Brenda died the day before George turned 60. He was never really the same again. As mentioned above, they named his cause of death as heart failure. What a joke! His heart had been forcibly removed when Brenda died.
Rest well, sir. You did good work. You spoke truth to power. You exposed the pompous. You ridiculed the oppressor and defended the little guy. You revealed our folly. And most of all, you demanded that we live up to the freedoms that we espouse. God bless you, whether you want it or not.
I love George Carlin. He is my preferred philosopher of language. He has been my favorite professor on faith. He has tutored my search for what is real and valuable in life.
If you are the kind of person that has been offended by George's choice of words, I feel sorry for you. If you are the kind of person that has been insulted by George's view of organized religion, you haven't paid close enough attention. If you think George was a bad guy, please go away.
George started out as a comedian tame enough to be acceptable to the Ed Sullivan Show, the definition of middle-American sensibilities. It didn't work for him. He was bigger than that. He had greater work to do.
1972 was George's year. By then, the suit was in the closet and the beard, blue jeans and t-shirt were all in place. In January, FM & AM was released. It can legitimately be called the first Carlin album. But it was September's Class Clown that brought the United States Government to its knees. All because of 7:03 of very adult humor that ended the album: "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." No, it was not titled "Seven Dirty Words." The routine did get blown up into "Filthy Words" on 1973's "Occupation: Foole." George was arrested in Wisconsin for a live performance of "Seven Words." The case was dismissed as a violation of his First Amendment rights. It was an FCC complaint against WBAI for playing "Filthy Words" that showed how our government couldn't care less about our Constitution. The Supreme Court upheld the FCC ruling, 5-4, calling George's performance "indecent but not obscene." And so, not for the first time and surely not the last, the United States Government declared itself afraid of words.
This was all very sexy to a twelve year old. I was learning, that summer of 1973, that Presidents could be crooks, and liars, and the Watergate tapes would prove all of that and more. And that a corrupt government still had time to be scared of a comedian, all because of words.
In later bits, Carlin reflected on the reality that words carry precisely and only the meaning we assign to them. And so, there are no "dirty" words; only our thoughts behind them. This is the greatest contribution that George Carlin made to our culture: do we people of the Declaration and the Constitution mean it? Do we believe in freedom of thought and expression? And do we get it, that those protections were written in precisely to protect UNpopular speech. Because you don't have to protect popular speech.
George challenged religion. How's that for understatement? He taught me long ago that if I was going to be anything more than a Mother Goose, I better know what matters about my faith; I better know what people can count on in it; I better have something substantial when the hell of life hits people in my care right in the faith. 'Cause "It'll all be better by and by" is a royal load of crap, and if you dish that garbage out, you get what you deserve.
Was there ever a better, more inspired moment of casting than Kevin Smith's brilliant placement of George Carlin in the Bishops' gear for the unveiling of the Buddy Christ in Dogma? That ridiculous, surfer-tanned, grinning, pointing, thumbs-up Jesus was everything George decried in his comedy, everything that is deadly about the church summed up in one godawful icon!
George challenged our rampantly materialistic culture in one of his greatest routines, "A Place for Your Stuff." Through George's eyes, American life is all about accumulating larger and larger receptacles for our stuff. And he's right, in many ways.
I could ramble on through the many phases (Hippy Dippy Weatherman, defender of Ali [The government wanted him to change jobs. The government wanted him to kill people. Ali said, "I'll beat them up, but I'm not going to kill them." The government said, "If you won't kill them, we won't let you beat them up!" Brilliant and priceless!], drug jokes, political pieces, total misanthropy) and praise so many bits ("Baseball and Football" was always big for me; his "People I Can Do Without" pretty much matched my list; "Euphemisms" is even more on target now than when it was released in 1990). But this is all the public George, the iconoclastic George.
George Carlin was married in 1961 to his beloved Brenda. Their daughter, Kelly, was born in 1963. Brenda died the day before George turned 60. He was never really the same again. As mentioned above, they named his cause of death as heart failure. What a joke! His heart had been forcibly removed when Brenda died.
Rest well, sir. You did good work. You spoke truth to power. You exposed the pompous. You ridiculed the oppressor and defended the little guy. You revealed our folly. And most of all, you demanded that we live up to the freedoms that we espouse. God bless you, whether you want it or not.
1 comment:
Amen, brother. He was the best. I can be brought to tears even now by his recordings even though I've heard them so many times.
A master at his craft.
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