George Carlin, R.I.P.
Posted on Jun 23, 2008 at 11:20 am | Tagged as: Language, Society
George Carlin, one of my comedy heroes, died Sunday of heart failure. He was 71.
I’ve always connected with Carlin, enjoying his cynical view of the world, his examination of language, and his skewering of everyday life. Carlin had the comedic gift of showing you something you’d seen, said, or done countless times before and saying, “Okay, but now look at it like this.” And from that new angle, you saw it in an entirely new way, one which was more often than not ridiculous. And you couldn’t help but laugh.
The good comedians make you laugh. The great ones make you think while you’re doing it. Carlin was one of the greats.
But the bastard used notes. NOTES!
I also in the later years got the strong impression that not only did he look older, but he probably did not smell very good. I don’t know what it is, some people even when they look clean and well groomed just kind of look smelly. He was one of them. At the very least he had much passed the age of bathroom assault which makes up for any lack of personal odor that may follow your body. As I found as a young man horrifically through being around my father and grandfather, at some point between the ages of 35 and 50, men stop “using” the restroom and begin “assaulting” it. Carlin, you could tell, just was one of those people.
I remember when Carlin started doing TV ads for cars and long distance carriers (remember the 10-10-220 deals?). I was kind of taken aback by the fact that after all his biting and relentless attacks on commercialism that he turned around and was doing voice overs for the Dodge Neon and appeared all out full frontal Carlin in the 10-10-220 ads. I couldn’t believe the old bastard was selling out. Not that it was selling out for me personally, but for him it seemed to be.
A year or so after that I remember catching one of his HBO specials and he started out the act by saying something in the neighborhood of “and for those of you who can’t reconcile what I’m telling you with the fact that I’m doing commercials for 10-10-220, that’s your problem, you figure it out.” I felt a little better.
In any case, he was old, now he’s dead. I consider him mentor…as much as I can for someone I never met. But whatever the case is, I’m pretty sure he didn’t smell too good in his later years. And I know for sure that if not today, by the end of the week, he will DEFINITELY not be smelling any better.
See ya, George.