Just read about the passing of George Carlin on my MSN homepage. A friend of mine stopped over and we talked a little about George and his influence. Discovering George Carlin at the tender age of 13 or so was one of the most revolutionary experiences of my youth. I remember my friend Jud and I stumbling across Carlin at Carnegie on HBO late one evening. We had the volume down as low as it would go and our faces pressed up to the screen. This was something that we knew we shouldn't be watching, but it was also the funniest thing we had ever seen. We laughed that uncontrollable laughter that makes your gut hurt. Jud was from a Mennonite family and my folks, who used some colorful language from time to time, refrained from throwing the F-bomb around as far as I knew. We had literally never heard most of what was coming out of Carlin's mouth...at least not as polished. Polished profanity... Needless to say, we tried to memorize everything we heard and bring it into school on Monday. They still show the Carnegie Hall show on HBO and I stumble across it every once in a while. It's still perfect.
The summer after graduation Carlin came to a small theater in my home town of Wilkes-Barre. Jud and I and a couple other friends sat in the front row to see Carlin. His act was less silly and more cerebral than what we remembered. It was still funny, but probably just a little bit over our heads at that age. Carlin was a genius at what he did. What he did with words and language I've never heard from any other comedian. With his elastic facial expressions he was able to juxtapose intelligent social insight with ridiculous observations and sometimes vulgar response. I appreciated his view of the world. Most times I needed George to validate some of my off color observations. He was one of a kind.
Check out this stuff on George!
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