"I think it's the Duty of the Comedian to Find Out Where the Line is Drawn and Cross it Deliberately"

I remember when Princess Diana died. I saw the thousands of people lined up bawling their eyes out. I didn’t get it. I thought they were a bunch of fools mourning some lady they’d never met or had done anything for them.

Today, I’m one of millions of people mourning the death of someone they’ve never met.

George Carlin died yesterday of heart failure.

I never thought I’d cry over the death of a celebrity, but today I did.

I was first exposed to George Carlin in 7^th grade. My best friend at the time, Collin, and I were going through my dad’s record collection. We were going through albums from the Stones and the Beatles, CCR and the Eagles. We came across an album of a middle aged man sitting by himself on a stool in the middle of a blue painted room. We were intrigued by this cover, different from the others, so we pulled it out.

It was a scene out of a nostalgic 1970’s movie. Two kids lying on their stomachs, propped up on their elbows in front of a stereo speaker; except instead of listening to rock 'n' roll, we were listening to George Carlin, who was the bad ass that most rock frontmen wish they could be. We sat there listening; wondering what was going to happen. Here was a guy talking about words. We understood what he was saying, but we didn’t quite get it. We kept listening, because even then we could tell that his guy was building up to something.

“There are 400,000 words in the English language and there are 7 of them you can't say on television. What a ratio that is. 399,993 to 7. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous to be separated from a group that large. All of you over here, you 7, Bad Words. That's what they told us they were, remember? "That's a bad word!" No bad words, bad thoughts, bad intentions, but no bad words. You know the 7, don't you, that you can't say on television?”

Ever the master, George Carlin let loose:

“Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits”

We just lost it. We were rolling on the floor laughing. We couldn’t stop. We couldn’t breath. We moved the needle back to listen to it again.

We were laughing so hard that my mother came in. “What’s so funny?” We showed her the record, and she flipped. “You can’t be listening to that! You’re too young to listen to that filth!” The irony isn’t lost on me, and it wasn’t then. She took the record from us. She even hid it so we couldn’t listen to it while she was at work.

But it was too late. The damage had been done. Carlin’s name, and more importantly, his attitude had been seared into my consciousness. I didn’t have much exposure to him again until 10^th grade. I rediscovered Carlin through his comedy specials in reruns on HBO. I saw the first airing of Complaints and Grievances. I even recorded it and wore out the tape from watching it too much. In college, I would fall asleep listening to recordings of his shows.

I knew he was getting old for a while. I wanted to see him live before he retired (ever the consummate entertainer, he performed until the day he died). When he came to Syracuse a couple years ago, I made it a point to see him. As much as I love the man, his material had declined in recent years. He sort of fell into the angry, bitter, cynical old man cliché. But that’s still better stand-up than 99% of comedians out there.

There was this dude in the front row that started heckling Carlin within like the first two minutes. He was starting the show with I'm a Modern Man, one of his "list" routines. The guy is interrupting him and he's all like, "Hey. Hey. HEY! Shut the fuck up motherfucker! This is a hard sketch and I need to concentrate, and I can't do that with you jawing away over there, so sit down and shut the fuck up." It was amazing.

One can see Carlin’s influence on me after talking for five minutes. His ideas on the simultaneous power and triviality of words are something I hold dear in my own heart. He didn’t suffer fools gladly or at all for that matter. His calling bullshit on authority, especially government and organized religion was always sharp and insightful. But it was his ability to make us laugh while making us think abut the absurdity of our lives that made him special. Despite his turn to bitterness and cynicism, part of him was always lighthearted, like his interest in words (because hobbies cost money). I’ll never be as smart or funny as George Carlin, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to emulate him.

The world needs more George Carlins. It’s suffered a great loss with the death of the one it had.

Joe Pesci rest his soul.