George Carlin
George Carlin died of Heart Failure on Sunday, and the world became a little less Interesting.
The thing I respected most about Carlin was that he saw Life as IT IS, not as it “Should Be,” or “Could Be.” He didn’t Romanticize Human Beings nor did he Coddle them, and along the way, he Pissed Off his fair share.
Carlin understood Life because he Understood Himself.
Personally, I can’t think of anything more Subversive. After all, how can we expect to make things better if we’re Unwilling to Admit the Truth?
If there is an Afterlife, I’m positive he, and Kurt Vonnegut…
George Carlin
May 12, 1937-June 22, 2008
War
Fat People
The American Dream
Jonestown 
“Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972 at Milwaukee’s Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing”
I was lucky enough to be at that show. Great Stuff. Carlin was a great quotable guy….
“Just because the monkey’s off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.”
//…The world just became a little less interesting//…
yuppers. But you are doing a great job of picking up the slack.
I know for sure how much Carlin didn’t want to check out before the chimp was off our back and took the circus with him.
Now who’s gonna swear? All hail George. No, not you monkey boy.
Dang. I’ll miss that greatly done skepticism and cynicism. He put it together so well.
He was my first, and probably all-time, favorite comedian. Of course, he was more than a comedian. He had the world’s biggest and most well-developed bullshit detector.
I can’t believe OKJimm was at THE show. How cool is that?
I caught part of Carlin’s Fresh Air interviews on NPR today. Good stuff. I loved his philosophy of life. There’s one thing he talked about in particular that I hope to take to heart, and that is when things are bad, you have to remember that it happens and eventually, good times will come again. And when the good times are here, enjoy them because you know you’ll have to pay for that with some bad times. It comes and goes.
I’d use all of the bad words, but there’d be no joy in it.
George was being a little hard on everybody, but we deserved it……. i often hoped he wasn’t miserable because he seemed so angry about things and that can make you miserable all the time. he probably channeled his anger into his comedy and that made him feel better, and gave us all a good dose of naked reality at the same time.
the second Carlin video reminded me of nothing but flowers
This is a sad, sad day.
George was a straight-talking asshole (in that he was never PC, called bullshit when he saw it and totally pissed people off), in the best possible way. I think he’d prefer NOT to rest in peace, but to stay pissed off if indeed there is some kind of afterlife.
I’ts cool to look at his old stuff that was jokes and kind of shock comedy, and then to watch him progress into more of a chanting, spoken wird type of performance near the end of his life. You really have to watch his performances a few times to get the whole picture. It really sucks that he died. We need more people calling Bullshit out there, especially now.
George was a great iconoclast and he knew much to the ire of the middle class that the fecking glass is half empty. The glass is only half full if you are delusional.
Conservatives with their insistence that the system “ain’t broke” and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” detested him.
I would venture to wager (For you readers about to have an aneurism: yes, I know that sounds redundant but repetition is often employed for emphasis. Sometimes it is done for qualification or hedging as in the dreaded double modal of non-standard varieties of English; e.g., ‘might ought’. Please let’s not any of us pretend that we only speak the Received Pronunciation.)…I venture to wager that no one else has the cajones to stand up and admit the freaking facts.
America is not a democracy. Rome was not a democracy. Ancient Greece was not a democracy.
The poor should not ask for mercy from the merciless. They should simply take it from them and show them no mercy, n’est-ce pas?
Okjimm– You know, in a revisionist kind of way, I’d like to think my posts are modeled after Carlin’s monologues.
Vigilante– I think he’d have to live another 50 years to outlast Chimpy’s influence.
Randal– I think you, and I can pick up the Mother Fucking Slack.
U.C.– He did have a great sense of irony.
Empress– As I said, he saw life as it is, without the dressing, croutons, and other junk we love to pile on top in order to forget we’re eating nothing but a big bowl of lettuce.
Utah– I was shocked when I saw the headline he died. I just saw him on television not long ago, and assumed he’d live forever.
Of course, I thought the same about Vonnegut.
Ghost– I don’t think he was hard on people. I think he was brutally honest, something we need more of in this world.
And I don’t think he was unhappy.
Until a person embraces their faults, how can they see their strengths, how can they change?
My take on Carlin is, he knew that the world would never change unless people changed themselves, and stopped looking for something, someone to blame or for someone else (Including God) to save them.
In an ironic way, his message was actually Optimistic.
Remember, cynics are simply optimists who decided to quit lying.
C.J.– I imagine he will.
Cowboy– Ain’t that the fucking truth?
Jude– I’m not sure human beings are capable of having true Democracy.
Such ideals may be, ultimately, beyond us. We’re too fucking selfish, and lazy.
Having said that, as I get older, I find myself less, and less interested in the Government. What is, is, and what shall be… Fuck who knows?
Save yourself, and if others want to save themselves, try to help, if not, C’est la vie.
// Until a person embraces their faults, how can they see their strengths, how can they change?
My take on Carlin is, he knew that the world would never change unless people changed themselves, and stopped looking for something, someone to blame or for someone else (Including God) to save them.
In an ironic way, his message was actually Optimistic.
Remember, cynics are simply optimists who decided to quit lying.
—- I just thought it was worth quoting, again
—–I think it merits quoting, again
—–I believe I am an optimist, too. My glass is never half-empty. That is usually when I have the bartender bring another.
He was asked one time if he was a cynic and I’m sure you know his answer: “Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?” Kudos to you and all who keep that flame burning. I’m glad I came to the party even though it is BYOB around here.
Thinking there’s the option for the bartender to bring another glass simply means one does not know the plight of those who do not have such a resource. Once what is the glass right now is gone; there is no more. Of course, the affluent can always refill, but that’s not a reality for the disenfranchized.
The poor need food, clothing, shelter, healthcare and education before they can help themselves in a constructive way. They do not have access to these resources, and that is why the glass is empty, even if the bourgeoisie want to deny it.
All pessimists are optimists for they believe life could be better.
All optimists are pessimists for they believe life could be worse.
Generally, the left is unhappy because they know we could make the world better with a little sacrifice.
Generally, the right is happy because they have been able to manipulate the system keep the poor disenfranchized and avoid sacrifice, thus safeguarding their ill-gotten gains.
Show me a self-made man, and I’ll show you an inheritor. Show me a poor man, and I’ll show you someone without an inheritance.
If a person tells the poor to help themselves, that person should not complain if the poor knock that person in the head and take what that person claims is his.
If you are poor, working hard does not lead to success. It makes you a good slave. It may keep you from being beaten, but it won’t emancipate you.
As for embracing our faults, try naming some of the faults of us Americans and see if you do not get labeled unAmerican.
Okjimm– I’m glad you find me quotable. Now, can you get me on television?
I promise not to curse 😉
Susan– It’s BYOB?
No wonder the liquor cabinet is empty.
Jude– “Try naming some of the faults of us Americans and see if you do not get labeled unAmerican.”
Have you ever read any of my posts?
Freedom
A Green Plastic Watering Can
Bring on the Unshaven Women
Those will get you started.
I’ve been called “Fascist, Sexist, Racist, Terrorist Sympathizer, Nigger, Asshole, Un-American, Communist, Pessimist, Cynic, Bastard, Misanthrope” and countless other names.
Eh, Fuck’em.
And I must disagree with two of your points.
1) The Right, in general, is not happy. Not in the Fucking Least. Listen to the people they support: Limbaugh (Fat, Grandiose, Narcissistic Junkie), Malkin (Self- Hating Shrill), Hannity (Tiny Pee-Pee Syndrome) etc.
The Right, in general, is bitterly Unhappy, which is why their policies, and rhetoric are so Angry.
2) The Right is not alone.
The Left very much participates in the oppression of Average Joe, Jane.
Obama -Mr. “Hope, and Change”) -just voted for the new Surveillance Bill, which grants retroactive immunity to the telecoms.
When it comes down to brass tacks, he’s interested, just like the majority of them, in one thing, Power.
You think Obama is on the left?
No offence, Mr. Lane but I doubt that homeland security has taken notice of your blog.
I mean go to a public forum such as a staff meeting where you work. Then try mentioning the evil’s of the American system. Can you say ‘unemployment’?
Are the spouters of right phlegm happy? No,I think that that scumbag O’reilly on Faux News, for one, is very unhappy.
I’m saying the average joe and jane are conservative and rightwing politics is their opium. By living life an illusion, they achieve a certain amount of bliss. For instance, ‘my country is wealthy; therefore, God must smile on us.”
Another tenet of theirs: ‘The poor suffer. God lets them; therefore, they must deserve it.”
//Show me a self-made man, and I’ll show you an inheritor. Show me a poor man, and I’ll show you someone without an inheritance.//
Gees, whatta cynic….. you never met my friend Dimly. He borrowed up the ying-yang to go to college….I met him when we were night cab drivers. He saved like a mother-sucker…bought a share of a real-estate business, went back to school and got his MBA….became a bank VP…..shit! he didn’t inherit shit! I’m the poor man….worked the public sector, got down-sized, divorced, foreclosed,&fucked! It is not inheritance, the cash in the pocket….it is the gold in the heart that makes a man rich. I am richer than all get out! So is Dimly…..we are camping up north in a couple of weeks. You just lost me with that statement…..it reeks of bitterness. I hope you get over it.
Bitterness is irrelevant. Fact is indisputable. I take it neither you nor your pal Dimly ever visited a slum in the developing world. There a man (or a woman) cannot pull himself/herself up the bootstraps. Besides it’s not so easy in rich-arse America either. If Dimly got a loan, he had to know how and where to submit loan applications. No co-signer? If one has a role model and and a hand up perhaps, but then that negates the self-made part. Good nuture among even the lower classes nullifies the self-made point. Without nurture, nation is nearly pointless. One does not decide on her nurture. She is born into it. Inheritance is not always property. A child brought up without the ambiance of other human voices will not learn to speak, despite having the proclivity to do so.
carlin was a genius who both saw the truth and spoke it, which is always a taboo. He was an uncomfortable comic because you never knew if his words were meant to be funny, insightful, or an indictment; I think usually they were all of the above.
The thing was, he was crude, rude, and deliberately offensive. He forced you to think, and he challenged you to defend your beliefs. The GOP hated him for this, just like they hated Frank Zappa.
I for one think that Carlin was one of the best users of our allegedly free speech as well as one of its greatest defenders. It makes me cringe that he should leave us now when it seems like we need him more than ever.
Regards,
Tengrain
I don’t know where his spirit is now, but wherever it is, people are having such a good time. This guy showed us that life was funny. He taught us to laugh at his words and ourselves. He was a gift to all of us. I just don’t think he was the kind of guy who would rest in peace, he’s just too full of energy to rest.
//Bitterness is irrelevant. Fact is indisputable. I take it neither you nor your pal…//
but all you have said is merely presumptive argument. And you launch a rebuttal with another presumptive…’I take it…’….gees…and Indian Reservation, North Dakota in the 70’s was a SLUM in the supposedly most developed nation on earth.
Bitterness is relevant….deal with it. And quit being presumptive if you want to deal in facts.
The presumption I made about you had nothing to do with the fact about poverty.
You may have seen a poor person once. I don’t know for certain, hence the presumption. But whether you’ve seen one or not does not change the fact of his/her misery. That remains a fact whether you like my presumption or not.
Trying to be sly with words does not make misery better.
Furthermore, having bitterness or hot having bitterness does not change the status quo. Not being bitter is simply ignoring reality. No one gives a shit. You know this, but you just don’t want to admit it. Perhaps it makes you feel better if you pretend the misery is not there. Smells like illusion to me.
And you admit to being presumptive….’sly with words’? Really….I thought I was merely point out that a presumption is not in reality a fact. I believed I was being articulate.
‘You know this, but you just don’t want to admit it’ is again being persumptive. I would presume. ‘Smells like illusion to me’
Je sens donc je suis- Descartes
Articulate my arse. Circumlocutory is more like it—something Carlin would have targeted for ridicule.
Hey, Jude, don’t be so mad
Take a bad break and make it better
Remember to let us into your heart
Then you can start to make it better
And any time you feel the pain, hey, Jude, refrain
Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders
Well don’t you know that its a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder
😉
Jude, there’s no need to refer to me as “Mr. Lane.” Just call me Emperor, the Emp, Der Bossenstugen, or something else along those lines.
I’m not one for formalities.
By the way, I need to post more about Carlin’s death, this is great.
Thanks, SB. A fitting lyrical reference.
Der Bossenstugen: Thanks. This was a good post. Btw, I read and enjoyed your post “Bring on the Unshaven Women”. Have often felt and thought similarly but would never dare say so in public, or at least not around XXs.
Well, I’m off to Christminster where I must be concentrating.