George Carlin dead at 71
Now that’s it. I’m officially old. Those funny guys that I use to listen to with my friends are all dying or dead. Those guys who were racy - Redd Fox, Richard Pryor and George Carlin are all dead. George Carlin died last night at the age of 71.
He like Pryor wandered in the early days trying to find his voice. The Hippy Dippy weatherman has the first Carlin routine that I can remember. The 7 dirty words was his classic. It truly made him. The routine, besides being risque, it showed, again, how Carlin plays with language. How he can turn a phrase or word and make it really funny.
He had this routine in which he talked about the old west. He asked wouldn’t it be funny if every time they talked about killing someone in one of those old westerns, you could substitute the word F$ck for kill. “Sheriff, I’m going to f$ck ya’ and I’m going to f$ck ya’, slow.”
Carlin was the master of language. He was able to look at words or phrases and make them hilarious in the right context. Below is an example from his great routine - Stuff.
Carlin was one of the greats. I loved his spirit and his humor. I’m thankful that I still have some of his records to listen to. I wonder what he is asking God right now?
[...] repeat my top story - George Carlin died last night of heart [...]
A Message by George Carlin:
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.
We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete…
Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.
Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.
Remember, to say, “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.
Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
If you don’t send this to at least 8 people….Who cares?
George Carlin
Kelvin -
Thanks. I appreciate you sending this.
Back in January 2002, George Carlin revealed his intimate thoughts on censorship, racism, and how the IRS saved his comedy career. With his recent passing, we represent his words here.
I was in my mother’s belly as she sat in the waiting room of the abortionist’s office. Dr. Sunshine was his code name. I was fifty feet from the drainpipe, and she saw a painting on the wall that reminded her of her mother, who had recently died. She took that as a sign to have the baby. That’s what I call luck.
My father drank and was a bully. For the first five years of my brother’s life, my father beat him with a leather-heeled slipper. Had I been subjected to that kind of treatment, all bets are off. His absence saved my life.
My mother had great executive-secretarial jobs in the advertising business and raised two boys during the Second World War. She used to say, “I make a man’s salary.” That’s heroism.
I’m sure Hitler was great with his family.
I don’t like authority and regulation, and I do my best to disrespect it, but I do that for myself. It’s self-expression only.
Sex without love has its place, and it’s pretty cool, but when you have it hand in hand with deep commitment and respect and caring, it’s nine thousand times better.
If it’s morally wrong to kill anyone, then it’s morally wrong to kill anyone. Period.
It’s amazing to me that literacy isn’t considered a right.
I was arrested for possession and cultivation of marijuana in the early ’70s, and it was thrown out. The judge asked me how I felt about it, and I said, “I understand the law, and I want you to know I’ll pay the fine, but I cannot guarantee I will not break this law again.” He really chewed me out for that.
Censorship that comes from the outside assumes about people an inability to make reasoned choices.
The first thing they teach kids is that there’s a God — an invisible man in the sky who is watching what they do and who is displeased with some of it. There’s no mystery why they start that with kids, because if you can get someone to believe that, you can add on anything you want.
I would die for the safety of the people I love.
I wish that we could measure how much the potential of the mind to expand has been stunted by television.
Because of my abuse of drugs, I neglected my business affairs and had large arrears with the IRS, and that took me eighteen to twenty years to dig out of. I did it honorably, and I don’t begrudge them. I don’t hate paying taxes, and I’m not angry at anyone, because I was complicit in it. But I’ll tell you what it did for me: It made me a way better comedian. Because I had to stay out on the road and I couldn’t pursue that movie career, which would have gone nowhere, and I became a really good comic and a really good writer.
I stopped voting when I stopped taking drugs. I believe both of those acts are closely related to delusional behavior.
There’s no morality in business. It doesn’t have a conscience. It has only the cash register. They’ll sell you crappy things that you don’t need, that don’t work, that they won’t stand behind. It’s a glorified legal form of criminal behavior.
If everybody knew the truth about everybody else’s thoughts, there would be way more murders.
There’s nothing wrong with high taxes on high income.
Lenny Bruce opened all the doors, and people like Richard Pryor and I were able to walk through them.
Given the right reasons and the right two people, marriage is a wonderful way of experiencing your life.
I think that the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King showed that all of the wishing and hoping and holding hands and humming and signing petitions and licking envelopes is a bit futile.
Blacks are deliberately kept down. Poor communities are deliberately underfunded.
I don’t think people should get credit for being honest and brave. I think there’s a lot of genetic sh** going on there.
Someday they’ll find a gene for putting on your overcoat.
There’s a pulse in New York, even on the quietest street, on the quietest day. It’s full of potential.
If there’s ever a golden age of mankind, it will not include men over two hundred pounds beating children who are less than one hundred pounds, and it will not include the deliberate killing of people in a formal setting.
I did something in a previous life that must have been spectacularly good, because I’m getting paid in this life just magnificently, more than one would dare imagine or hope for.
[...] like to laugh as much or more than the next guy. I can laugh at myself and my candidate. Unfortunately, I [...]
[...] same to laugh as such or more than the incoming guy. I crapper vocalization at myself and my candidate. [...]