George Carlin Has Gone To "A Better Place"
That is, if your life sucks so badly that you think it would be preferable to be dead and having your eyeballs eaten out by maggots. Here's a piece from one of his shows. It's "Religion Is Bullshit," of course.
UPDATE:
George Carlin on death here (thanks, Rip Rense):
I still have my dead friends Cathy Seipp, Marnye Oppenheim, Marlowe Minnick, and Marlon Brando in my cell phone numbers. I like that. I'd rather remember them than not.
To the memory of a master of American colloquial language: Hey, George... Joe bless you!
Radwaste at June 23, 2008 2:56 AM
R.I.P. you ornery ol coot, you kept a lot of people laughing for a lot of years. Your humor was brutally pragmatic and so very often an express ride to the heart of the point, with a strong undercurrent of what's gone so horribly wrong with the society we live in.
You were a sage and a poet-philosopher, couching your wisdom in a wry wit that escaped far too many. You made an excellent lifes work out of telling people how screwed up they were in a way they laughed about it.
That's talent man... that's talent.
I salute you!
Gunner Retired
Gunner retired at June 23, 2008 3:33 AM
Yeah, George, what GR said. You had a lot of people shakin' in their boots because you spoke the truth - it's too bad they didn't listen to you. The world was a little bit better with you in it. You will be missed.
Flynne at June 23, 2008 5:55 AM
When I was a shit-filled kid he seemed pissy & brilliant, but I grew out of the shit-filled part and he stayed with the pissy. In the last 35 years, we never saw this comedian smile or heard him laugh. The bitterness from drugs, the death of the first wife, and (most pathetically) tax problems did much to diminish my admiration for the guy. In interviews, heard rail against Bush or Rumsfeld, but would eventually get to his contempt for the heart of the common man... Then he'd go to Vegas to mirthlessly collect an easy paycheck.
The late 60's and early 70's were a fun time to be young, because sensible people had convinced themselves that teenage habits --like self-centeredness, and accusing people of hypocrisy-- were actually innovative virtues. They weren't.
This morning people are talking about him like he was the greatest angel since Tim Russert.
Crid at June 23, 2008 6:13 AM
Gotta love that guy for this:
"The best thing about living at the water’s edge . You only have assholes on three sides of you , and if they come this way you can hear them splash."
Arvin at June 23, 2008 7:00 AM
This is sad news. Regardless, Crid, he was a great man. Who says great men aren't without their faults? Of course, they have them. That doesn't negate their talent. Teenage habits? Accusing people of hypocrisy? When people are hypocrites, they should be pointed and laughed at. That is just what he did so well.
Donna at June 23, 2008 7:14 AM
Crid- again really well said. I always watched Carlin's specials, but they deteriorated in the last few years to just mean and vulgar. I like mean, and I like vulgar, but in a context that is funny. Chris Rock is a good example for vulgar, yet still insightful and funny.
My all time favorite comedian is still Richard Pryor, and even as he was getting sicker (health wise), he was becoming a deeper and more compassionate persion, and funnier. His Mudbone routines were brilliant.
All in all, I think Carlin is better off now.
eric at June 23, 2008 8:20 AM
Oh god. I must have been under a rock yesterday. Carlin was one of the kings of the bitter old man style of comedy. He was rude and crude but funny and insightful. What a great talent to lose. I hope he's in a better place.
Danny at June 23, 2008 10:04 AM
> I like mean, and I like vulgar,
> but in a context that is funny.
Yeah.
> one of the kings of the bitter
> old man style
But he thought he was being an angry young one
crid at June 23, 2008 2:04 PM
I was thinking about this today, because I really liked Carlin for a while. I'm sorry that he's gone.
But the difference I alluded to earlier about Richard Pryor is that Richard Pryor talked about himself in a way that was "boy, did I fuck up", and then he laughed about it. Then he shared what it was like to be him. He was such a likeable, if not impossible to live with, guy. Richard's last concert film was moving in about a half dozen ways, and when he spoke of going to Africa, and realizing that his people weren't niggers, and what a realization that was to him, it made the usage of that word totally different for me. I had been more along the lines of Chris Rock's line "I love black people. I hate niggers". (If you haven't seen both the bits, you won't get the context I'm talking about.) After Pryor's bit, I 99.9% stopped even thinking the word.
Carlin's last years were just "this is why I hate everybody, and you're all too fucking stupid to see that the forces of the world have turned your selves in greedy consuming automatons". It was sad to see his craft deteriorate, because the talent was there.
Eric at June 23, 2008 3:30 PM
Hmm. How much of the perceived decline in George's talent is because, finally, he was talking about you?
Angel? No? Entertaining? Only if you weren't painfully aware of the hard core of reality in his ranting - or didn't mind. Or just admired his command of the language.
Radwaste at June 23, 2008 4:46 PM
The hard core reality of his ranting? (opinion omitted)
Please provide examples.
Again- I liked Carlin. But in the last decade...
To extrapolate from another realm... I used to hold Lenny Bruce to the highest loft. I have his albums (though now on CD, long story), and How To Talk Dirty and Influence People is still in my top 5 favorite books. They reside between Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut on my shelves. Lenny was brilliant, but he went down in flames for nobody other than himself. He was a matyr of his own making, or a guy who was so obsessed with the 1st Amendment he couldn't live in his own world.
Richard, Lenny, George, and the others before them left us a legacy, and maybe the comic's legacy is for us to to sit around and try to interpret their works. I appreciate that you are defending him, though.
Eric at June 23, 2008 8:34 PM
What Eric said. Plus this:
The first thing to discuss for Pryor was the pure animal muscle of his humor. He was the strongest. But if there was any jujitsu going on, it's that he always made it clear that his own responses weren't helping matters: Even though his childhood had been much more painful than ours, he didn't pretend that his problems had all come to him from external forces.
Look at the Wikipedia page for Carlin: It's like a periodic table of accusatory bitterness. I hadn't realized his drug problems were so recent. I admire him for understanding that nature is not our friend, including human nature: But he apparently went to his grave without realizing that his nature had contributed to the problem. He thought this planet was something that had been done to him personally.
I dug him, but I've admired many silly men in show business. His spirit represented something childish about the boomer generation who loved him.
Crid at June 23, 2008 8:50 PM
Also, I like the idea that commenters here are describing him as old... It suggests that people knew better than to take his life as an example.
Crid at June 23, 2008 8:52 PM
Word.
brian at June 24, 2008 5:28 AM
Alkon, if you're dead, what difference could it make if your eyes were eaten out by maggots? You won't be using them. Now being ALIVE and having your eyeballs eaten out by maggots...
C. Siegel at June 24, 2008 7:25 AM
I love both Pryor and Carlin but they seem very similar to me. Except that Pryor kinda sold out at the end. I don't condemn him for it. But he did. Could be because he fucked up worse with the drugs than Carlin did. Could be because of his illness but he did. To me, Pryor's best stint was in "Car Wash" (which Carlin was also in) as Daddy Rich, an obviously scam artist preacher. A hilarious parody! But worse childhood than us? Speak for yourself. I wasn't black and, for the most part, wasn't a fuck-up but mine wasn't a picnic either and I think that was one reason I dug Pryor so much. People get pissed off at you like you wouldn't believe when you mention your lousey childhood. It was nice to have a laugh at the pain like Richard did. Best antidote around.
And, Eric, who the hell do you think Rock's ripping off on the nigger bit albeit not as funny at it? Pryor had a great stand-up sthick with this. (Maybe someone who can access You Tube can dig it up.)
Carlin's best? With people asking each other what they thought it was, I'm stymied to pick one and I'm appreciating all the You Tube embeds because my work bars me from going direct. Religion and people acting like saying fuck in front of a child is worse than fucking a child are two pet peeves of mine so I am partial to Carlin's "immature" poking fun of the God and the ridiculous overreaction to foul language.
Um, so you think less of Carlin because he didn't beat himself up like Pryor? Maybe Pryor should have done a little less of that. And you'll note that I didn't call him old. He's been funny too long to think of him as that. But hello? 71's young?
Donna at June 24, 2008 8:36 AM
Leave a comment