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There's a scene in Mel Brooks' History of the World Part 1 where Mel Brooks' character walks up to a window to get welfare and declares his job to be that of a stand-up philosopher.
George Carlin was more than a stand-up comedian. He was a stand-up philosopher.
Carlin broke down societal norms, customs, euphemisms, and human behavior methodically and meticulously.
In his last HBO comedy concert, "It's Bad for Ya", he tackled religion perfectly picking apart all the actions we think people must do because of religion.
"Life is Worth Losing" was a masterfully done comedy concert. While I enjoyed the earlier portion of the HBO special, I will never forget the "all suicide channel", Carlin's idea for a reality television show that would make tons of money because people, especially Americans, would enjoy watching people commit suicide. They would even line up to be on the channel.
I liked the more cynical George Carlin perhaps because this Bush administration has made me more cynical. I still have my ideas but life under King George makes your mind an easy target for the unmatched candor, cynicism, and wit of a genius like Carlin.
From his book, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? to the HBO specials to Carlin as the first host of Saturday Night Live to Carlin's 7 words and to Carlin dissecting airplane announcements and talking about Persian Gulf warfare, George Carlin will be sorely missed, not just by me but by others who followed his career and by those who will come across him in the future.
I'm reading Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-Up in the 1970s Changed America by Richard Zoglin. Carlin was part of a counterculture revolution in comedy that changed the way comedy treated society and this revolution happened not just because of Carlin but because people like Richard Pryor, Robert Klein, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Albert Brooks, and Andy Kaufman created comedy with no boundaries that allowed every comedian to be smart, wild, and wise.
Of the seven comedians who started the comedy revolution, Carlin is the only one who continued on without feeling the need to make it big in something other than stand-up.
It is fitting that George Carlin is the 11th person to be awarded the Mark Twain American Humor award because he really stood up to the bullshit in the way that Mark Twain did during his life.
All I can say is the bullshit finally got to him.
He didn't die of heart failure. He died from bullshit.
