George Carlin dead of heart failure at 71 - Written by Ben Kenber

It is now a sad sad day for the world of comedy. George Carlin, one of the greatest comedians that had ever lived, has died of heart failure in Los Angeles. He was 71 years old. I only just found out about this a couple of minutes ago, and I am very saddened at the news of this. It feels like we have robbed of one of the defining comedic voices of many generations. Carlin had gone from being a child reared in the Catholic school system, to a counter-culture hero, constantly rallying against the hypocrisy of politics and religion which are never ending.

George was born Irish Catholic and was educated mostly in Catholic schools in New York. Years later, he would come to be known as one of the most famous lapsed Catholics in show business. He would later say in one of his HBO shows (he has done 11 of them since 1977) that he was a Catholic before he reached “the age of reason.” When he was in the army, he worked as a disc jockey which he did very well. After that, he did a comedy act with Jack Burns from 1960 to 1962. When he and Jack split, Jack went to work at Second City in Chicago, and George moved on to become a solo stand-up comedian. While working as a solo comedian, he went from being a conventional comedian to radically changing his act. He began to go against the ingrained conservative nature of America and how it mired itself in the hypocrisies of religion and politics. George also loved playing around with the English language and the different meanings found in it. This would later lead to perhaps his most famous piece as a comedian, “The Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television.” At one performance, he was arrested for doing this bit.

I actually had the lucky opportunity of meeting George when he did a performance at Knockti Harbor in Northern California. My dad’s secretary at the time was the girlfriend of Carlin’s manager, and she was more than happy to get me to meet him before he did his show. I shook his hand, and he could not have been nicer. I congratulated him on getting the Grammy for “Jammin’ In New York” as I usually don’t give a shit at about the Grammy’s in general. George replied to me,

“Well, I first got the Grammy when I did “FM & AM,” and it felt like it was okay to get again for this one.”

George had asked me where I lived, and I told him that I was from a more or less “yuppie town” which parents who spoiled my kids rotten. My dad was there with me at the time, and he was actually embarrassed when I said this as though I was somehow coming down on him (this was not the case). I still remember this time I spent with him vividly, and I felt so lucky to have the opportunity to hang with him even if it was only for a couple of minutes. Before I left, he told me that he would send me a package of stuff as a gift. I ended up getting a package from his production company several weeks later with (at the time) his latest CD of “Jammin’ In New York,” a double cassette copy of “Carlin Gold” which contained the albums of “Class Clown,” “Occupation: Foole,” and “FM & AM.” In that package, I also got a George Carlin t-shirt which had his picture on it, and on the back of it said,

“Another goddamn t-shirt.”

There was also a booklet that dealt with all the bad words you couldn’t say, as it has since grown into a list with more than seven words. There was also a great section dealing with euphemisms on masturbation. The one that always stood out in my mind was one that a college student told him:

“Shaking hands with the unemployed.”

I got to discover Carlin’s work on a comedy radio station that was on AM radio back in the 80’s when I was living in Thousand Oaks, California. I have been a fan ever since. George was also one of those artists who managed to keep up with current events and with the passing of time. Not all artists succeeded in doing so, but Carlin did. George went from having fun at the expense of the Nixon administration and their lies about leaving Vietnam (“We’ll only be here six weeks just looking for the Ho Chi Man trail!”) to dealing with our current presidential administration by saying:

“But Governor George W. Bush, and I call him that because as far as I’m concerned, that’s the only political office that he was ever really elected to…”

We always need voices like Carlin’s because we always need to be shaken out of our complacency in life to look at the way things really are, and to always question authority. It is too easy to fall asleep at the wheel of life and not care at all about how we are constantly screwed over on a regular basis by the people we were taught as children to trust. Carlin will never be replaced, but someone out there has got to continue questioning the powers that be and have some fun at their expense.

At this time, I would like to share with you some of my most favorite albums by Carlin. All of them are great and have their share of memorable moments, but these ones in particular meant the most to me.

Class Clown – Far and away one of the greatest comedy albums ever released. Carlin didn’t indulge so much in jokes as he did in stories of how he grew up as an Irish Catholic and ended up “fooling around man” in class. George was very specific in the ways that we all clown around in class and how he would be bored and thought:

“Why not deprive someone else of their education.”

The bit where he talks about disrupting the class by “ATTRACTING ATTENTION TO YOURSELF” has stayed with me since I was in elementary school. One of the funniest things I ever got to hear him say was:

“Hey guys! Didn’t make the team but BLEAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!”

This was also the album that introduced us to the “Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television” which has become one of his most well known bits.

What Am I Doing In New Jersey? - I ended up giving this CD to one of my co-workers at my current job, as he was in the process of moving back to New Jersey. George did this one back in the days of the Ronald Reagan Administration, and he was astonished by all the lawmakers in it and how they were constantly being criminally charged for corruption. Carlin talked about all the charges that were being brought up against Edwin Meese who was the Attorney General, and then he pointed out this fact:

“The Attorney General is the nation’s leading law enforcement officer!”

What is brilliant and scary about this is how it relates to the world we live in today. If you were to replace the Edwin Meese with Alberto Gonzales, you would see that not much has changed in the world of politics. In fact, this is proof of how history repeats itself, and of how this is the case when we fail to learn from it.

Jammin’ In New York – When George did this one, we were at the time of Gulf War; our first war in Iraq. Carlin started off the war by saying how much we as Americans like war because we are so good. He then goes off to say that it is a good thing we are good at war because we’re not good at anything else anymore. We may not be able to build a decent car or educate our young people, or even take care of our old people, but we can “bomb the shit out of your country! Especially if you’re country is full of brown people!”

Listening to this now, he could almost be describing our current disastrous war in Iraq, especially when you consider how he discusses some of the players in that war from the early 1990’s (Dick Cheney and Collin Powell).

The last bit on that album dealt with our love of accidents, explosions, and destruction. Carlin went right into our fascination of the horrible things that we can never quite look away from. This made it clear to me why we needed people like him; George said the things that we always thought and wanted to say but were too afraid to.

Back In Town – George’s take on abortion at the start of this album is so dead on. He immediately started the show with a line that he has said at many of his other shows:

“Why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn’t want to fuck in the first place?”

Carlin didn’t hesitate in tackling one of the most divisive subjects in America and of how Pro-Lifers are so fixated on the unborn, but that once you’re born, “you’re on your own.” This later led to one of his most memorable moments where he went after Catholics and of how he felt that the head people of the Catholic Church should not deal with the abortion issue until they have raised a couple of kids of their own on minimum wage. His responded by saying,

“In the meantime, what these Cardinals should do is tell these priests who took a vow of chastity to keep their hands off the alter boys! When Jesus said, “suffer the little children, c’mon to me,” THAT’S NOT WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT!!”

Take Off’s & Put-On’s - One of his earliest albums, this introduced us to Carlin’s character of Willy West and the Willy West show on Wonderful Wino Radio. George’s comic timing here is priceless as he talks about the songs he’s playing. So many great moments there including:

“750 on your dial just above the police call scan!”

“This song is brand new, never released before, it’s number one on the charts this week! Next week it’ll be a golden oldie!”

We also got introduced to other characters like Biff Barf the sports reporter, and Al Sleet your “hippy dippy weatherman.” Those bits were priceless, and they still make me laugh today.

FM & AM – This is another of his famous ones that also deals with the Wonderful Wino radio show as well as the evening news. Brilliant bits abound on this one as he discusses how sex is sold in commercials, and about “five day deodorant pads.” I love it when he said:

“When you first heard about these, how many of you thought you had to wear them?... I always catch a few.”

An Evening With Wally Londo with Billy Slazo – This one is worth mentioning for his bit on the differences between baseball and football, as the differences between them are almost frightening:

“Baseball has extra innings. We don’t know when it’s going to end! Football is rigidly timed and will end even if we have to go into sudden death!”

Today, I have lost one of my heroes in life, and I can never ever get him back. Still, George Carlin left us with a great volume of work that will never disappear no matter what the FCC says. Carlin taught us to always question what is told to us by our government and of the people around us, and how the English language can be very funny. Throughout the years, he continued to criticize the powers that be without fear of retribution, and he never did seem to care about what others thought of him.

He was the very first host of “Saturday Night Live,” and he made many appearances in the movies as well. Casting this fallen Catholic as a Catholic Cardinal in Kevin Smith’s “Dogma” was an inspired piece of casting. He even showed some range when he played Ben Affleck’s father in “Jersey Girl,” and this is regardless of the fact that many people did not care for the film. In the Pixar movie “Cars,” he got to voice the hippy car who was endlessly fascinated by the stop light constantly changing from red to green. This year, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. When he was Inducted into the Comedy Hall of Fame in November 1994, he thanked his wife Brenda by saying:

“Half of this is yours. So later on, when we sell this thing, I’ll split the money with you!”

We miss you George. Thank you for all the laughs you gave me and so many people throughout the years. You may have been 71 years old, but I still think you left us way too soon.