jesus is coming, look busy
As my wife pointed out this morning, we were fortunate to see one of George Carlin's final performances, at the Temple Buell Theatre in April. As I mentioned then, he's my favorite crank in the world. Or was.
I'm grateful we had him around to annoy the fuck out of fundamentalists and busy-bodies as long as we did, given his heart problems and his struggles with booze and drugs. At the same time I want to admonish him for not taking better care of himself, although I'm pretty sure he'd respond with a slap up 'side my head and a shouted reminder to "mind yer own fuckin' business!" Indeed. Much of his most potent material came from ridiculing people who had trouble minding their own fuckin' business.
He had it out for religion (this entry's subject line comes from the back of a T-shirt I bought at his April show), governmental abuse of civil liberties, taxes (he owed millions to the IRS at one point), prudes and general stupidity. His most famous routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", earned him an obscenity charge when he performed it live, and a follow-up routine ("Filthy Words") ultimately led to a Supreme Court decision regarding the FCC's power to regulate content on radio and television.
Carlin refused to vote, calling it the "delusion of choice", and never did I hear him have a kind word for our political leaders (one of his best quips was "If we could just find out who's in charge, we could kill him"). He was a thorn in the side of ideologues everywhere, a guy who paradoxically seemed to hate everyone but carried some optimism for the human race.
I grew up listening to his comedy routines, even had some of them memorized. He's the kind of guy I would have loved to have as my crazy uncle.
Georgie, ya cocksucker, I'll fuckin' miss ya.
I'm grateful we had him around to annoy the fuck out of fundamentalists and busy-bodies as long as we did, given his heart problems and his struggles with booze and drugs. At the same time I want to admonish him for not taking better care of himself, although I'm pretty sure he'd respond with a slap up 'side my head and a shouted reminder to "mind yer own fuckin' business!" Indeed. Much of his most potent material came from ridiculing people who had trouble minding their own fuckin' business.
He had it out for religion (this entry's subject line comes from the back of a T-shirt I bought at his April show), governmental abuse of civil liberties, taxes (he owed millions to the IRS at one point), prudes and general stupidity. His most famous routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", earned him an obscenity charge when he performed it live, and a follow-up routine ("Filthy Words") ultimately led to a Supreme Court decision regarding the FCC's power to regulate content on radio and television.
Carlin refused to vote, calling it the "delusion of choice", and never did I hear him have a kind word for our political leaders (one of his best quips was "If we could just find out who's in charge, we could kill him"). He was a thorn in the side of ideologues everywhere, a guy who paradoxically seemed to hate everyone but carried some optimism for the human race.
I grew up listening to his comedy routines, even had some of them memorized. He's the kind of guy I would have loved to have as my crazy uncle.
Georgie, ya cocksucker, I'll fuckin' miss ya.