The real tragedy of Carlin's death hit me when I realized his greatest performance was still ahead of him. Now it's been lost forever. Only a week ago, America's Court Jester -- the Man Who Never Bought The Bullshit -- was chosen to receive this year's Mark Twain Award. Twain would have approved, I'm sure. Carlin was every bit as insightful as Twain and even more inciteful than Menken.
I was looking forward to the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Awards this year with glee. The president attends. The honoree performs. Everyone laughs. But this time, everyone wouldn't be laughing because the joke would be on them. It's hard to explain how daring and confrontational Carlin's humor was to people who grew up with the world already transformed by his wit. The best I can do is describe what I think Carlin's performance would have been like: Imagine Colbert showing up to speak at the Correspondent's Dinner with a baseball bat...
Only this time the tables would be turned. Carlin, not Bush, would be the guest of honor. Adding insult to injury, Bush would have nowhere to hide. He would have no excuse to avoid the bloodbath. He would have been trapped in a way Congress nor Fitzgerald could ever have arranged. He would have been forced to sit there and take the full brunt of Carlin's attack and the Secret Service would have been powerless to stop it.
Carlin was the closest thing we had to America's Court Jester. He was no fool, but he was a brilliant Fool nonetheless. His most recent stuff was very dark, indeed. But we live in dark times. And George knew that. It made him angry. Gone was the old wry humor, poking fun at the establishment...questioning the fundamentals everyone took for granted...."Hey Father, if God can do anything... can God make a rock so big even he couldn't move it?" Gone was the surgical precision of a master wordsmith dissecting the language, the constitution, and laying them bare for all to see like in The "Seven Words You Can't Say on TV," a work so brilliant it has even been cited in the Supreme Court.
"A word to the wise and a cudgel for the obtuse" could easily have described his final work. George was swinging a big club. He knew where the soft spots were and he knew where the pressure points were. But he was still swinging a big club because he didn't care about waking people up. He wanted to bring the whole fucking thing down.
I was so looking forward to him swinging that cudgel at the Kennedy Center. What a way to send George, the lesser, packing... worse than vilified, worse than despised.... mocked mercilessly by the Master himself. But damned if Dubya doesn't lead a charmed life. George, The Fool, is dead and now the smirking fool will dodge this bullet too.
I can't write anymore, it's too damn depressing. I'll let George take us out with the bit he could have done at the Kennedy Center. It's from his final tour. The lights go down, the Fool comes on stage to thunderous applause and then... :
Politicians have traditionally hidden behind three things: The Flag, The Bible, and Children. "No Child Left Behind. No Child Left Behind." Oh, really? Well, it wasn't long ago you were talking about giving kids a Head Start. Head Start.... Left Behind....someone's losing fucking ground here.
There's a reason for this. There's a reason for this. There's a reason education sucks and there's a reason it will never, ever, ever, be fixed. It's never going to get any better. Don't look for it. Be happy with what you got. BECAUSE THE OWNERS OF THIS COUNTRY DON'T WANT THAT. I'm talking about the real owners. The big, wealthy business interests that control everything and make all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians. They're irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. They own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls!
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interest. That's right.
What a piece of news to learn this morning... I am so sad.
But then when I logged on to OEN, I was delighted someone had written a piece on the George we Love... After hearing about some corpomedia talking head who died, I felt next to nothing. Russert never spoke to me; never knew me or my values; never uttered anything that resonated as truth inside me.
George Carlin, on the other hand, taught me, led me, humored me, made me laugh, pissed me off, and grew in political maturity alongside me and my generation, and the generations that followed. Since the early 70s, he has been in my heart, his ideas in my head, and his acerbic wit a lofty goal.
Thanks for this piece... Long live Fool George.
by
Rady Ananda (110 articles, 262 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 885 comments)
on Monday, June 23, 2008 at 9:57:47 AM
The recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors don't perform. They get a dinner with (until last year) the President (last year Rice substituted), and the show features peers performing to honor the recipients, who are seated in a mezzanine box.
The task of skewering would have been left to someone else. But we'll never know, because they don't bestow it posthumously (at least, not thus far).
by
Michael Fox (47 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 34 comments)
on Monday, June 23, 2008 at 10:23:52 AM
We had Carlin. And he leaves behind work that will always remind us to be honest and indifferent.
So, fuck the media clowns who played fanfare to Russert's death. Russert was the guy who hounded Kucinich for possibly seeing a UFO while he was with Shirley MacLaine. He egged on Democratic candidates to be belligerent towards Iran in the debates.
Carlin was no peacenik but had he been in Russert's spot, he would have helped us to understand ourselves. He would have reminded us that as we are going to war we should know we are engaging in "prick-waving." He would've described the Bigger Dick Foreign Policy theory to us. And we would've thought twice about bombing Iraq.
So, in place of God Bless George Carlin, here's a video because Carlin wouldn't have wanted God to bless him for anything. He would have said God has too much on his plate to deal with what with people like Ted Haggard, Pat Robertson, George W. Bush, and the "Left Behind" people egging on Armageddon being alive and well.
George Carlin told the truth, unvarnished truth, and he was a very courageous man. A funny man. A great man.
Unfortunately, like so many who see the truth and recognize the evil that masquerades as good, he allowed his anger to get the best of him.
Don't get me wrong. Righteous anger is justified, but it must be tempered, and channelled correctly.
Even the Christ Jesus hated hypocrites and the "Nicolaitans" -- people who seek, fight for and win worldy power, wealth and domain, at the expense of others.
There is now another son of man who also hates them, but has channeled his anger into something VERY constructive. I urge you to read his work, at:
He hated the endless liars, bullies and crooks that infest this country. He didn't have much use for the suckers and lazy cowards either. The decadent court was the American people, and he was their most witty fool.
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John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1203 comments)
on Monday, June 23, 2008 at 7:38:08 PM
George Carlin was a thinker--and fully conscious that the Government, filled with wars, ironies, hypocracy, etc. He wanted us the unthinking public and particpants of the great experiment of America to not just blindly accept the words of Government in a great silent majority.He will be missed.
by
Eliot Gould (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 21 diaries, 102 comments)
on Monday, June 23, 2008 at 7:47:09 PM
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