George Carlin

I'm really sad today because George Carlin died. Maybe it's kind of stretch to say he was an "influence" on me, because I'm not a comedian or even a humorist in the way people usually think about it. But as a person for whom humor is a defining characteristic, he was among my strongest influences. He considered himself a writer first and performer second and his books are funny, but his delivery made the material even better. I think he did audio versions of his books. They're not as spirited as his stage act, but still worth listening to.

He's probably most famous for his "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" bit, which is still funny, mostly because you still can't say most of those words on TV and almost everyone uses and hears every one of them every day. It's not the words that are funny, but what it says about the strangeness of our society that they're "kind of" taboo. Can you think of anything else that's kind of taboo? Seems pretty oxymoronic to me. Or maybe just moronic.

Carlin was an angry iconoclast, and he had an ear for language that was unsurpassed, even among observational comedians. There are plenty of obituaries and "appreciations" out in the newspapers and online, but all I want is to see a marathon tribute of his HBO specials, to trace his evolution from stoner humor to social commentary to the plain old "Did you ever notice..." stuff that he did better than anyone. Comedy Central did a ranking of the top standup comedians of all time, which is an incredibly stupid idea, but any list that has George Carlin between Richard Pryor (ranked #1) and Lenny Bruce (#3- before my time so I don't really know) turned out okay. Pryor, by the way can be seen in a couple of concert movies that are still spectacular if you don't mind hearing the f-word every 10 seconds or so (you get used to it after a while).

With all the bits that were repeated in the obituaries, I didn't see one of my favorites, where he riffs on "Save the Planet." He goes on about how it's not the planet we're trying to save, it's us. The planet will be here long after we're gone and maybe the our part in the great cosmic plan was just to come to the earth for a period and to leave the earth with plastic.

I will miss George Carlin and I'm glad I can still hear his voice in my head.