Timmy84 said: toots said: In honor of George Carlin I wrote a short poem:
Why did you have to fucking go Not I even fucking know Now you are in a fucking place that only you fucking know You taught me my first fucking cuss word I hope you know So sad that you had to fucking go. RIP George Carlin (I meant this in a light humoured way I hope no one was offended IF they are I shall remove it) [Edited 6/23/08 6:20am] : NICE! TY Smurf theme song-seriously how many fucking "La Las" can u fit into a dam song
Proud Wendy and Lisa Fancy Lesbian asskisser | |
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Heard the news of his passing first things this morning and it just profoundly saddened me.
RIP Mr. Carlin I'm firmly planted in denial | |
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meow85 said: Geez, George...
Shit, I'm actually crying here. RIP, Mr. Conductor. I watched that show too | |
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ZombieKitten said: purplesweat said: Oh wow, I never knew he said that! I read that somewhere a few years ago and it's always stuck with me. R.I.P that car ad (mercedes? jaguar?) was based pretty much on this it was on telly a couple of years ago Yeah, I remember that, fantastic ad. | |
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toots said: In honor of George Carlin I wrote a short poem:
Why did you have to fucking go Not I even fucking know Now you are in a fucking place that only you fucking know You taught me my first fucking cuss word I hope you know So sad that you had to fucking go. Personally, I think George would have been honored. | |
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http://www.nytimes.com/20...ref=slogin
A Master of Words, Including Some You Can’t Use By CHARLES McGRATH Stand-up comedy in America is not, for the most part, a long-lived profession. Comics burn out, go stale, lose their edge. Some, like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, almost literally consume themselves. Others, like Steve Martin, prudently retire from the stage at the top of their form and then find other things to do. And a few old-timers, like Don Rickles, have turned themselves into living museums, doing a kind of humor that commemorates its own borscht belt roots. George Carlin, who died on Sunday at 71, had a remarkably long and productive career of 50-odd years and was far from a museum piece. His last HBO special, “It’s Bad for Ya,” was broadcast in March, and like all the others, was an enormous hit. Mr. Carlin was beloved by the middle-aged, who had practically grown up with him, but also by young people whose parents weren’t even alive when he began appearing on “The Tonight Show” in the 1960s and transforming everyone’s notion of what stand-up could be. That was still the era of bit comedy, of stories and one-liners. Mr. Carlin did routines that involved full-fledged characters of a sort that had seldom been seen on television before. There was Al Sleet, the hippy-dippy weatherman, for example, whose forecasts had an existential edge: “Dark. Continued dark throughout the evening.” Mr. Carlin delivered these lines with the eye-rolling and the slightly spaced-out voice that eventually developed into his trademarks, when he abandoned characters for a more free-form kind of humor. He didn’t seem stoned, exactly, but a lot of his humor appeared to come from that part of the brain that lesser people need drugs to activate. He got tremendous mileage just from repeating certain words, dirty ones especially. His most famous routine was “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” You still can’t say them — or print them in most newspapers, for that matter — even after the issue went all the way to the Supreme Court. In later years Mr. Carlin added three more words to the list, but the comic principle remained the same, and the joke was as fresh as ever. These ostensibly taboo words, which are at the same time an unavoidable part of our daily discourse, used and overheard everywhere except on television and in newspapers, became unaccountably funny when Mr. Carlin intoned them onstage, pausing for dramatic effect and every now and then wriggling with mock horror. Like all the great comics, Mr. Carlin had a gift for saying — and thinking — things that other people wouldn’t or couldn’t. He wasn’t as threatening as Bruce or Pryor. Especially in his later years, when, mostly bald but with a white beard and just a hint of a ponytail in back, he would bounce onstage in a black sweater, black pants and sneakers, his persona was warmer, cranky rather than angry. He was like your outrageous beatnik uncle. But his humor was always a little subversive and aimed at puncturing hypocrisy and feel-goodism. He hated religion, self-help movements, corporate and government doublespeak, shopping malls, fast food and trendy child-rearing practices. Though he delivered it with a smile, his forecast was the same as Al Sleet’s: dark and getting darker. Mr. Carlin was a surprisingly effective physical comedian, prowling the stage with a microphone and delivering his punch lines with body English and facial acrobatics. But the heart of his humor was verbal. One of his favorite bits was an extended riff, a mock tirade, against what he called “soft language — the language that takes the life out of life.” Soft language was the substitution, say, of “bathroom tissue” for “toilet paper”; it was calling the dump the landfill and saying you were experiencing a “negative cash-flow situation” when what you really meant was that you were broke. Mr. Carlin had dozens of examples, and he could cite them for minutes on end, alternately rueful and disbelieving. But what came through, even as he shook his head and used one or more of the seven forbidden words to say how stupid we were, was his love of language itself and how various and evocative it was. Even the expletives — or perhaps especially the expletives. Studies have shown the ass crack of the average Prince fan to be abnormally large. This explains the ease and frequency of their panties bunching up in it. |
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http://www.nytimes.com/20...nfeld.html
June 24, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder. By JERRY SEINFELD THE honest truth is, for a comedian, even death is just a premise to make jokes about. I know this because I was on the phone with George Carlin nine days ago and we were making some death jokes. We were talking about Tim Russert and Bo Diddley and George said: “I feel safe for a while. There will probably be a break before they come after the next one. I always like to fly on an airline right after they’ve had a crash. It improves your odds.” I called him to compliment him on his most recent special on HBO. Seventy years old and he cranks out another hour of great new stuff. He was in a hotel room in Las Vegas getting ready for his show. He was a monster. You could certainly say that George downright invented modern American stand-up comedy in many ways. Every comedian does a little George. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’ve been standing around with some comedians and someone talks about some idea for a joke and another comedian would say, “Carlin does it.” I’ve heard it my whole career: “Carlin does it,” “Carlin already did it,” “Carlin did it eight years ago.” And he didn’t just “do” it. He worked over an idea like a diamond cutter with facets and angles and refractions of light. He made you sorry you ever thought you wanted to be a comedian. He was like a train hobo with a chicken bone. When he was done there was nothing left for anybody. But his brilliance fathered dozens of great comedians. I personally never cared about “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” or “FM & AM.” To me, everything he did just had this gleaming wonderful precision and originality. I became obsessed with him in the ’60s. As a kid it seemed like the whole world was funny because of George Carlin. His performing voice, even laced with profanity, always sounded as if he were trying to amuse a child. It was like the naughtiest, most fun grown-up you ever met was reading you a bedtime story. I know George didn’t believe in heaven or hell. Like death, they were just more comedy premises. And it just makes me even sadder to think that when I reach my own end, whatever tumbling cataclysmic vortex of existence I’m spinning through, in that moment I will still have to think, “Carlin already did it.” That sums it up for me. He was like a grown up letting you in on a "naughty" secret. I didn't know Carlin, so I can't miss him, I think he would laugh at that idea, but I will miss the way he made me feel. [Edited 6/24/08 0:15am] Studies have shown the ass crack of the average Prince fan to be abnormally large. This explains the ease and frequency of their panties bunching up in it. |
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luv4u said: Making into a sticky
I'll miss George RIP George | |
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babooshleeky said: luv4u said: Making into a sticky
I'll miss George RIP George Looks like Liberace. | |
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honeypot69 said: meow85 said: Geez, George...
Shit, I'm actually crying here. RIP, Mr. Conductor. I watched that show too I grew up listening to a lot of Carlin's humour, probably from an earlier age than most parents would've let their kids hear him. But the earliest I remember him is from that show. Oh, and whoever it is they've got doing the narrating for Thomas the Tank Engine these days can fuck off. He's no George, and he's no Ringo. "A Watcher scoffs at gravity!" | |
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R.I.P George Carlin
Stuck like glue! | |
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http://www.thenation.com/...eat/331953
I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately. -- George Carlin, The last vote that George Carlin said he cast in a presidential race was for George McGovern in 1972. When Richard Nixon, who Carlin described as a member of a sub-species of humanity, overwhelmingly defeated McGovern, the comedian gave up on the political process. "Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians," he explained in a routine that challenged all the premises of today's half-a-loaf reformers. "Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.'" Needless to say, George Carlin was not on message for 2008's "change we can believe in" election season. His was a darker and more serious take on the crisis – and the change of consciousness, sweeping in scope and revolutionary in character, that was required to address it. Carlin may have stopped voting in 1972. But America's most consistently savage social commentator for the best part of a half century, who has died at age 71, did not give up on politics. In recent years, in front of audiences that were not always liberal, he tore apart the neo-conservative assault on liberty with a clarity rarely evidenced in the popular culture. Recalling George Bush's ranting about how the endless "war on terror" is a battle for freedom, Carlin echoed James Madison's thinking with a simple question: "Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?" Carlin gave the Christian right – and the Christian left – no quarter. "I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State," Carlin said. "My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death." Carlin's take on the Ronald Reagan administration is the best antidote to the counterfactual romanticization of the former president – in which even Barack Obama has engaged – remains the single finest assessment of Reagan and his inner circle. While Carlin did not complain much about politicians, he made an exception with regard to the great communicator. Recorded in 1988 at the Park Theater in Union City, New Jersey, and later released as an album -- What Am I Doing in New Jersey? – his savage recollection of the then-concluding Reagan-Bush years opened with the line: "I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took the group photograph of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan administration." But there was no nostalgia for past fights, no resting on laurels, for this topical comedian. He read the papers, he followed the news, he asked questions – the interviews I did with Carlin over the years were more conversations than traditional Q & A's – and he turned it all into a running commentary that focused not so much on politics as on the ugly intersection of power and economics. No one, not Obama, not Hillary Clinton and certainly not John McCain, caught the zeitgeist of the vanishing American dream so well as Carlin. "The owners of this country know the truth: It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." Not just aware of but steeped in the traditions of American populism – more William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Victor Debs than Bill Clinton or John Kerry – Carlin preached against the consolidation of wealth and power with a fire-and-brimstone rage that betrayed a deep moral sense that could never quite be cloaked with four-letter words. "The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. 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 statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've 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," ranted the comedian whose routines were studied in graduate schools. "But I'll tell you what they don't want," Carlin continued. "They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers – people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club." Carlin did not want Americans to get involved with the system. He wanted citizens to get angry enough to remake the system. Carlin was a leveler of the old, old school. And no one who had so public a platform – as the first host of NBC's Saturday Night Live, a regular on broadcast and cable televisions shows, a best-selling author and a favorite character actor in films (he was even the narrator of the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends) – did more to challenge accepted wisdom regarding our political economy. "Let's suppose we all just materialized on Earth and there was a bunch of potatoes on the ground, okay? There's just six of us. Only six humans. We come into a clearing and there's potatoes on the ground. Now, my instinct would be, let's everybody get some potatoes. "Everybody got a potato? Joey didn't get a potato! He's small, he can't hold as many potatoes. Give Joey some of your potatoes." "No, these are my potatoes!" That's the Republicans. "I collected more of them, I got a bigger pile of potatoes, they're mine. If you want some of them, you're going to have to give me something." "But look at Joey, he's only got a couple, they won't last two days." That's the fuckin' difference! And I'm more inclined to want to share and even out," he explained in an interview several years ago with The Onion. "I understand the marketplace, but government is supposed to be here to redress the inequities of the marketplace," Carlin continued. "That's one of its functions. Not just to protect the nation, secure our security and all that shit. And not just to take care of great problems that are trans-state problems, that are national, but also to make sure that the inequalities of the marketplace are redressed by the acts of government. That's what welfare was about. There are people who really just don't have the tools, for whatever reason. Yes, there are lazy people. Yes, there are slackers. Yes, there's all of that. But there are also people who can't cut it, for any given reason, whether it's racism, or an educational opportunity, or poverty, or a fuckin' horrible home life, or a history of a horrible family life going back three generations, or whatever it is. They're crippled and they can't make it, and they deserve to rest at the commonweal. That's where my fuckin' passion lies." Like the radicals of the early years of the 20th century, whose politics he knew and respected, Carlin understood that free-speech fights had to come first. And always pushed the limit – happily choosing an offensive word when a more polite one might have sufficed. By 1972, the year he won the first of four Grammys for best comedy album, he had developed his most famous routine: "Seven Words (You Can't Say on Television)." That summer, at a huge outdoor show in Milwaukee, he uttered all seven of them in public – and was promptly arrested for disturbing the peace. When a version of the routine was aired in 1973 on WBAI, the Pacifica Foundation radio station in New York,. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC. Pacifica was ordered to pay a fine for violating federal regulations prohibiting the broadcast of "obscene" language. The ensuing free-speech fight made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 against the First Amendment to the Constitution, Pacifica and Carlin. Amusingly, especially to the comedian, a full transcript of the routine ended up in court documents associated with the case, F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). "So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," recalled Carlin. Proud enough that you can find the court records on the comedian's website: www.georgecarlin.com There will, of course, be those who dismiss Carlin as a remnant of the sixties who introduced obscenity to the public discourse – just as there will be those who misread his critique of the American political and economic systems as little more than verbal nihilism. In fact, George Carlin was, like the radicals of an earlier age, an idealist – and a patriot --of a deeper sort than is encountered very often these days. Carlin explained himself best in one of his last interviews. "There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for this culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species--and my culture in America specifically--have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power," he said. "And perhaps it's just a human weakness and an inevitable human story that these things happen. But there's disillusionment and some discontent in me about it. I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word 'cynic' has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. 'George, you're cynical.' Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?" Studies have shown the ass crack of the average Prince fan to be abnormally large. This explains the ease and frequency of their panties bunching up in it. |
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Mars23 said: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/331953
I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately. -- George Carlin, The last vote that George Carlin said he cast in a presidential race was for George McGovern in 1972. When Richard Nixon, who Carlin described as a member of a sub-species of humanity, overwhelmingly defeated McGovern, the comedian gave up on the political process. "Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians," he explained in a routine that challenged all the premises of today's half-a-loaf reformers. "Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.'" Needless to say, George Carlin was not on message for 2008's "change we can believe in" election season. His was a darker and more serious take on the crisis – and the change of consciousness, sweeping in scope and revolutionary in character, that was required to address it. Carlin may have stopped voting in 1972. But America's most consistently savage social commentator for the best part of a half century, who has died at age 71, did not give up on politics. In recent years, in front of audiences that were not always liberal, he tore apart the neo-conservative assault on liberty with a clarity rarely evidenced in the popular culture. Recalling George Bush's ranting about how the endless "war on terror" is a battle for freedom, Carlin echoed James Madison's thinking with a simple question: "Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?" Carlin gave the Christian right – and the Christian left – no quarter. "I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State," Carlin said. "My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death." Carlin's take on the Ronald Reagan administration is the best antidote to the counterfactual romanticization of the former president – in which even Barack Obama has engaged – remains the single finest assessment of Reagan and his inner circle. While Carlin did not complain much about politicians, he made an exception with regard to the great communicator. Recorded in 1988 at the Park Theater in Union City, New Jersey, and later released as an album -- What Am I Doing in New Jersey? – his savage recollection of the then-concluding Reagan-Bush years opened with the line: "I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took the group photograph of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan administration." But there was no nostalgia for past fights, no resting on laurels, for this topical comedian. He read the papers, he followed the news, he asked questions – the interviews I did with Carlin over the years were more conversations than traditional Q & A's – and he turned it all into a running commentary that focused not so much on politics as on the ugly intersection of power and economics. No one, not Obama, not Hillary Clinton and certainly not John McCain, caught the zeitgeist of the vanishing American dream so well as Carlin. "The owners of this country know the truth: It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." Not just aware of but steeped in the traditions of American populism – more William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Victor Debs than Bill Clinton or John Kerry – Carlin preached against the consolidation of wealth and power with a fire-and-brimstone rage that betrayed a deep moral sense that could never quite be cloaked with four-letter words. "The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. 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 statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've 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," ranted the comedian whose routines were studied in graduate schools. "But I'll tell you what they don't want," Carlin continued. "They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers – people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club." Carlin did not want Americans to get involved with the system. He wanted citizens to get angry enough to remake the system. Carlin was a leveler of the old, old school. And no one who had so public a platform – as the first host of NBC's Saturday Night Live, a regular on broadcast and cable televisions shows, a best-selling author and a favorite character actor in films (he was even the narrator of the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends) – did more to challenge accepted wisdom regarding our political economy. "Let's suppose we all just materialized on Earth and there was a bunch of potatoes on the ground, okay? There's just six of us. Only six humans. We come into a clearing and there's potatoes on the ground. Now, my instinct would be, let's everybody get some potatoes. "Everybody got a potato? Joey didn't get a potato! He's small, he can't hold as many potatoes. Give Joey some of your potatoes." "No, these are my potatoes!" That's the Republicans. "I collected more of them, I got a bigger pile of potatoes, they're mine. If you want some of them, you're going to have to give me something." "But look at Joey, he's only got a couple, they won't last two days." That's the fuckin' difference! And I'm more inclined to want to share and even out," he explained in an interview several years ago with The Onion. "I understand the marketplace, but government is supposed to be here to redress the inequities of the marketplace," Carlin continued. "That's one of its functions. Not just to protect the nation, secure our security and all that shit. And not just to take care of great problems that are trans-state problems, that are national, but also to make sure that the inequalities of the marketplace are redressed by the acts of government. That's what welfare was about. There are people who really just don't have the tools, for whatever reason. Yes, there are lazy people. Yes, there are slackers. Yes, there's all of that. But there are also people who can't cut it, for any given reason, whether it's racism, or an educational opportunity, or poverty, or a fuckin' horrible home life, or a history of a horrible family life going back three generations, or whatever it is. They're crippled and they can't make it, and they deserve to rest at the commonweal. That's where my fuckin' passion lies." Like the radicals of the early years of the 20th century, whose politics he knew and respected, Carlin understood that free-speech fights had to come first. And always pushed the limit – happily choosing an offensive word when a more polite one might have sufficed. By 1972, the year he won the first of four Grammys for best comedy album, he had developed his most famous routine: "Seven Words (You Can't Say on Television)." That summer, at a huge outdoor show in Milwaukee, he uttered all seven of them in public – and was promptly arrested for disturbing the peace. When a version of the routine was aired in 1973 on WBAI, the Pacifica Foundation radio station in New York,. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC. Pacifica was ordered to pay a fine for violating federal regulations prohibiting the broadcast of "obscene" language. The ensuing free-speech fight made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 against the First Amendment to the Constitution, Pacifica and Carlin. Amusingly, especially to the comedian, a full transcript of the routine ended up in court documents associated with the case, F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). "So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," recalled Carlin. Proud enough that you can find the court records on the comedian's website: www.georgecarlin.com There will, of course, be those who dismiss Carlin as a remnant of the sixties who introduced obscenity to the public discourse – just as there will be those who misread his critique of the American political and economic systems as little more than verbal nihilism. In fact, George Carlin was, like the radicals of an earlier age, an idealist – and a patriot --of a deeper sort than is encountered very often these days. Carlin explained himself best in one of his last interviews. "There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for this culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species--and my culture in America specifically--have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power," he said. "And perhaps it's just a human weakness and an inevitable human story that these things happen. But there's disillusionment and some discontent in me about it. I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word 'cynic' has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. 'George, you're cynical.' Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?" Why do the good ones leave so early? And the bastards linger on and on and on... I just introduced my 16yo to George via his HBO Special, (who loved him btw). We were going to see him in July. "Let love be your perfect weapon..." ~~Andy Biersack | |
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HBO 2 is airing 11 of his specials over the next 2 days and SNL is airing the 1st episode, which he hosted this weekend.
HBO2 will present 11 of his specials over two nights. The HBO2 schedule is (all times ET/PT): Wednesday, June 25 8:00 p.m. George Carlin at USC (1977) 9:30 p.m. George Carlin Again! (1978) 11:00 p.m. Carlin at Carnegie (1983) midnight Carlin on Campus (1984) 1:00 a.m. Playin’ with Your Head (1986) Thursday, June 26 8:00 p.m. What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988) 9:00 p.m. Doin’ It Again (1990) 10:00 p.m. Jammin’ in New York (1992) 11:00 p.m. Back in Town (1996) 12:05 a.m. You Are All Diseased (1999) 1:00 a.m. It’s Bad for Ya (2008) Studies have shown the ass crack of the average Prince fan to be abnormally large. This explains the ease and frequency of their panties bunching up in it. |
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Mars23 said: HBO 2 is airing 11 of his specials over the next 2 days and SNL is airing the 1st episode, which he hosted this weekend.
HBO2 will present 11 of his specials over two nights. The HBO2 schedule is (all times ET/PT): Wednesday, June 25 8:00 p.m. George Carlin at USC (1977) 9:30 p.m. George Carlin Again! (1978) 11:00 p.m. Carlin at Carnegie (1983) midnight Carlin on Campus (1984) 1:00 a.m. Playin’ with Your Head (1986) Thursday, June 26 8:00 p.m. What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988) 9:00 p.m. Doin’ It Again (1990) 10:00 p.m. Jammin’ in New York (1992) 11:00 p.m. Back in Town (1996) 12:05 a.m. You Are All Diseased (1999) 1:00 a.m. It’s Bad for Ya (2008) Thanks, Mars. My son and I will be recording. "Let love be your perfect weapon..." ~~Andy Biersack | |
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Mars23 said: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/331953
Carlin explained himself best in one of his last interviews. "There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for this culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species--and my culture in America specifically--have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power," he said. "And perhaps it's just a human weakness and an inevitable human story that these things happen. But there's disillusionment and some discontent in me about it. I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word 'cynic' has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. 'George, you're cynical.' Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?" Thanks Mars one of the best things I've read from someone in the entertainment business in the past 20 years. [Edited 6/24/08 21:51pm] The Most Important Thing In Life Is Sincerity....Once You Can Fake That, You Can Fake Anything. | |
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Moderator moderator |
No problem guys. I feel an obligation to listen to him again and really think about his ideas. He worked so hard to bring then to us, he has the most HBO specials of any comedian and worked literally right to his death.
You don't have to agree with everything, but he hopefully opened some minds (besides ours of course)! He's not one that grows into a legend after death. He already is! [Edited 6/24/08 21:57pm] Studies have shown the ass crack of the average Prince fan to be abnormally large. This explains the ease and frequency of their panties bunching up in it. |
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INSATIABLE said: Fuck.
Dubble fuck. | |
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No, no, no!! I already had a weirdly shitty day and now this... I'm so sad.... Allow me to introduce: Ms. Onder and Mrs. Donk! (o)(o)
They now belong to BigBearHermy. | |
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Mars23 said: HBO 2 is airing 11 of his specials over the next 2 days and SNL is airing the 1st episode, which he hosted this weekend.
HBO2 will present 11 of his specials over two nights. The HBO2 schedule is (all times ET/PT): Wednesday, June 25 8:00 p.m. George Carlin at USC (1977) 9:30 p.m. George Carlin Again! (1978) 11:00 p.m. Carlin at Carnegie (1982) midnight Carlin on Campus (1984) 1:00 a.m. Playin’ with Your Head (1986) Thursday, June 26 8:00 p.m. What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988) 9:00 p.m. Doin’ It Again (1990) 10:00 p.m. Jammin’ in New York (1992) 11:00 p.m. Back in Town (1996) 12:05 a.m. You Are All Diseased (1999) 1:00 a.m. It’s Bad for Ya (2008) Where's his HBO specials "Complaints & Grievances" and "Life is Worth Losing"? Stuck like glue! | |
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I had never really noticed him before he died.... Of course I knew about the "seven dirty words" routine but his stand-up routines have never been shown on television over here, so I didn't know how much influence he had on comedians in the US and other countries. I went to the biggest DVD rental store in Iceland today and found one of his HBO specials on DVD, "Life is Worth Losing".
I have to say, this is some of the sickest and at the same time funniest shit in stand-up I've ever seen! And I co-sign what people have been saying here about how he could be really thought-provoking with his comedy. I watched this DVD laughing my ass off but after watching it, it's a bit sad to know that there will be no more stand-up shows from this comedy genius. Truly a great loss. [Edited 6/25/08 14:45pm] | |
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Always made me laugh, gonna miss you. | |
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noimageatall said: Mars23 said: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/331953
I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately. -- George Carlin, The last vote that George Carlin said he cast in a presidential race was for George McGovern in 1972. When Richard Nixon, who Carlin described as a member of a sub-species of humanity, overwhelmingly defeated McGovern, the comedian gave up on the political process. "Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians," he explained in a routine that challenged all the premises of today's half-a-loaf reformers. "Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.'" Needless to say, George Carlin was not on message for 2008's "change we can believe in" election season. His was a darker and more serious take on the crisis – and the change of consciousness, sweeping in scope and revolutionary in character, that was required to address it. Carlin may have stopped voting in 1972. But America's most consistently savage social commentator for the best part of a half century, who has died at age 71, did not give up on politics. In recent years, in front of audiences that were not always liberal, he tore apart the neo-conservative assault on liberty with a clarity rarely evidenced in the popular culture. Recalling George Bush's ranting about how the endless "war on terror" is a battle for freedom, Carlin echoed James Madison's thinking with a simple question: "Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?" Carlin gave the Christian right – and the Christian left – no quarter. "I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State," Carlin said. "My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death." Carlin's take on the Ronald Reagan administration is the best antidote to the counterfactual romanticization of the former president – in which even Barack Obama has engaged – remains the single finest assessment of Reagan and his inner circle. While Carlin did not complain much about politicians, he made an exception with regard to the great communicator. Recorded in 1988 at the Park Theater in Union City, New Jersey, and later released as an album -- What Am I Doing in New Jersey? – his savage recollection of the then-concluding Reagan-Bush years opened with the line: "I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took the group photograph of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan administration." But there was no nostalgia for past fights, no resting on laurels, for this topical comedian. He read the papers, he followed the news, he asked questions – the interviews I did with Carlin over the years were more conversations than traditional Q & A's – and he turned it all into a running commentary that focused not so much on politics as on the ugly intersection of power and economics. No one, not Obama, not Hillary Clinton and certainly not John McCain, caught the zeitgeist of the vanishing American dream so well as Carlin. "The owners of this country know the truth: It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." Not just aware of but steeped in the traditions of American populism – more William Jennings Bryan and Eugene Victor Debs than Bill Clinton or John Kerry – Carlin preached against the consolidation of wealth and power with a fire-and-brimstone rage that betrayed a deep moral sense that could never quite be cloaked with four-letter words. "The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. 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 statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've 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," ranted the comedian whose routines were studied in graduate schools. "But I'll tell you what they don't want," Carlin continued. "They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers – people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club." Carlin did not want Americans to get involved with the system. He wanted citizens to get angry enough to remake the system. Carlin was a leveler of the old, old school. And no one who had so public a platform – as the first host of NBC's Saturday Night Live, a regular on broadcast and cable televisions shows, a best-selling author and a favorite character actor in films (he was even the narrator of the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends) – did more to challenge accepted wisdom regarding our political economy. "Let's suppose we all just materialized on Earth and there was a bunch of potatoes on the ground, okay? There's just six of us. Only six humans. We come into a clearing and there's potatoes on the ground. Now, my instinct would be, let's everybody get some potatoes. "Everybody got a potato? Joey didn't get a potato! He's small, he can't hold as many potatoes. Give Joey some of your potatoes." "No, these are my potatoes!" That's the Republicans. "I collected more of them, I got a bigger pile of potatoes, they're mine. If you want some of them, you're going to have to give me something." "But look at Joey, he's only got a couple, they won't last two days." That's the fuckin' difference! And I'm more inclined to want to share and even out," he explained in an interview several years ago with The Onion. "I understand the marketplace, but government is supposed to be here to redress the inequities of the marketplace," Carlin continued. "That's one of its functions. Not just to protect the nation, secure our security and all that shit. And not just to take care of great problems that are trans-state problems, that are national, but also to make sure that the inequalities of the marketplace are redressed by the acts of government. That's what welfare was about. There are people who really just don't have the tools, for whatever reason. Yes, there are lazy people. Yes, there are slackers. Yes, there's all of that. But there are also people who can't cut it, for any given reason, whether it's racism, or an educational opportunity, or poverty, or a fuckin' horrible home life, or a history of a horrible family life going back three generations, or whatever it is. They're crippled and they can't make it, and they deserve to rest at the commonweal. That's where my fuckin' passion lies." Like the radicals of the early years of the 20th century, whose politics he knew and respected, Carlin understood that free-speech fights had to come first. And always pushed the limit – happily choosing an offensive word when a more polite one might have sufficed. By 1972, the year he won the first of four Grammys for best comedy album, he had developed his most famous routine: "Seven Words (You Can't Say on Television)." That summer, at a huge outdoor show in Milwaukee, he uttered all seven of them in public – and was promptly arrested for disturbing the peace. When a version of the routine was aired in 1973 on WBAI, the Pacifica Foundation radio station in New York,. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC. Pacifica was ordered to pay a fine for violating federal regulations prohibiting the broadcast of "obscene" language. The ensuing free-speech fight made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 against the First Amendment to the Constitution, Pacifica and Carlin. Amusingly, especially to the comedian, a full transcript of the routine ended up in court documents associated with the case, F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). "So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," recalled Carlin. Proud enough that you can find the court records on the comedian's website: www.georgecarlin.com There will, of course, be those who dismiss Carlin as a remnant of the sixties who introduced obscenity to the public discourse – just as there will be those who misread his critique of the American political and economic systems as little more than verbal nihilism. In fact, George Carlin was, like the radicals of an earlier age, an idealist – and a patriot --of a deeper sort than is encountered very often these days. Carlin explained himself best in one of his last interviews. "There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for this culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species--and my culture in America specifically--have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power," he said. "And perhaps it's just a human weakness and an inevitable human story that these things happen. But there's disillusionment and some discontent in me about it. I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word 'cynic' has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. 'George, you're cynical.' Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?" Why do the good ones leave so early? And the bastards linger on and on and on... I just introduced my 16yo to George via his HBO Special, (who loved him btw). We were going to see him in July. My mom and I were going to go see him in November when he was to come out this way... "...they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?" This quote really sticks with me for some reason. I think that's the best description of the man I've heard. "A Watcher scoffs at gravity!" | |
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Richard & George were the best! The Era/ The Blueprint is now gone
RIP! Here is Director Kevin Smith's Views ( Jersey Girl was George's best acting ) http://www.newsweek.com/id/142975 ‘A God Who Cussed’ Director Kevin Smith remembers George Carlin Courtesy Scott Mosier Carlinite Fun: The comedian with director Kevin Smith on the set of 'Dogma' By Kevin Smith They say you should never meet your heroes. I've found this a good rule to live by, but as with any rule, there's always an exception. My first exposure to George Carlin was in 1982, when HBO aired his "Carlin at Carnegie" stand-up special. When I saw the advert—featuring a clip of Carlin talking about the clichéd criminal warning of "Don't try anything funny," and then adding, "When they're not looking, I like to go …," followed by a brief explosion of goofy expressions and pantomime—I immediately asked my parents if I could tape it on our new BetaMax video recorder. That was a hilarious bit. But when I finally watched the special, Carlin blew my doors off. Whether he was spinning a yarn about Tippy, his farting dog, or analyzing the contents of his fridge, Carlin expressed himself not only humorously, but amazingly eloquently as well. I was, as they say, in stitches. And that was before he got to the Seven Words You Can't Say on Television. I was 12 years old, watching a man many years my senior curse a blue streak while exposing the hypocrisy of a medium (and a society) that couldn't deal with the public usage of terms they probably employed regularly in their private lives. And while he seemed to revel in being a rebel, here was a man who also clearly loved the English language, warts and all—even the so-called "bad words" (although, as George would say, there are no such things as "bad words"). I wouldn't say George Carlin taught me obscenities, but I would definitely say he taught me that the casual use of obscenities wasn't reserved just for drunken sailors, as the old chestnut goes; even intelligent people were allowed to incorporate them into their everyday conversations (because George was nothing if not intelligent). From that moment forward, I was an instant Carlin disciple. I bought every album, watched every HBO special, and even sat through "The Prince of Tides" just because he played a small role in the film. I spent years turning friends on to the Cult of Carlin, the World According to George, and even made pilgrimages to see him perform live (the first occasion being a gig at Farleigh Dickinson University in 1988). Carlin influenced my speech and my writing. Carlin replaced Catholicism as my religion. Sixteen years later, I sat across from the star of "Carlin at Carnegie" in the dining room of the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. It was a meeting I'd dreamed of and dreaded simultaneously. George Carlin was the type of social observer/critic I most wanted to emulate … but he was a celebrity, too. What if he turned out to be a true prick? What I quickly discovered was that, in real life, George was, well, George. Far from a self-obsessed jerk, he was mild-mannered enough to be my Dad. He was as interested as he was interesting, well-read and polite to a fault—all while casually dropping F-bombs. But most impressive, he didn't treat me like an audience member, eschewing actual conversation, electing instead to simply perform the whole meeting, more "on" than real. He talked to me like one of my friends would talk to me: familiar, unguarded, authentic. I made three films with George over the course of the next six years, starting with "Dogma" and his portrayal of Cardinal Glick, the pontiff-publicist responsible for the Catholic Church's recall of the standard crucifix in favor of the more congenial, bubbly "Buddy Christ." A few years later, I wrote him a lead role in "Jersey Girl"—as Bart Trinke (or "Pop"), the father of Ben Affleck's character. It called for a more dramatic performance than George was used to giving, but the man pulled it off happily and beautifully. (Something most folks probably don't know about George: He took acting very seriously. The man was almost a Method actor.) Sadly, I consider that "Jersey Girl" part my one failing on George's behalf, and not for the reasons most would assume (the movie was not reviewed kindly, to say the least). No, I failed because George had asked me to write a different role for him. In 2001, George did me a solid when he accepted the part of the orally fixated hitchhiker who knew exactly how to get a ride in "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." When he wrapped his scene in that flick, I thanked him for making the time, and he said, "Just do me a favor: Write me my dream role one day." When I inquired what that'd be, he offered, "I wanna play a priest who strangles children." It was a classic Carlin thing to say: a little naughty and a lot honest. I always figured there'd be time to give George what he asked for. Unfortunately, he left too soon. He was, and will likely remain, the smartest person I've ever met. But really, he was much more than just a person. Without a hint of hyperbole, I can say he was a god, a god who cussed. © 2008 | |
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truly one of the all time greats
miss him i shall | |
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