"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.

Gone Fishing

When I was a kid, I learned how to fish. My family had a lakefront campground in Canada on the Rideau Canal system. We had an old, 27-foot trailer from the 1970’s that was less than 20 feet from the shoreline. My dad was the person who taught me to fish, and everything I know about fishing, which admittedly isn’t much, I learned from him. I learned that one doesn’t need any fancy lures or poles or reels. A normal fishing pole with a hair-covered hook called a jig was just fine. The jig may or may not have had a small piece of fish on it, depending on what had been caught that day. I learned that you should hold the line between your thumb and index finger, so you could more easily tell when a fish was biting your lure. I learned that because fish are cold blooded, in the early season, spring and early summer, you should stick to shallow waters. Later, the fish move to the deeper, cooler waters. I learned that when reeling in, you couldn’t go too fast, because if you don’t have a fish yet, it will know that your lure isn’t food, and if you do have a fish, the line will snap.

I can still remember my first fishing pole. It was about three feet long, cream colored, with a brown reel. I didn’t really catch much with it; just some small, spotted rock bass and some sunfish, neither of which were kept. Whenever I did catch something worth eating, it was always thrown back because it was too small. I was always afraid that someday a fish so big would bite my line that it would just rip my tiny, little pole out of my tiny, little hands.

My dad owned a 14-foot long light green fishing boat with an 18 horsepower motor. We would use that to go to the good fishing spots on the lake. There was the spot across the lake, about 200 yards out from the boathouse S decal on the face that was good for bass fishing. There was the spot about 300 yards south of that, near a tiny peninsula with a brown house with a big satellite dish; which was good for catching perch. There was a weed bed south of our campsite in the middle of the lake. My dad would stop the boat at the edge of the weed bed. “Keep your jig outside of the weed bed,” he would tell me. “The fish will see it and come out and bite it.” There was another bed to the north, along the shore. These were good places for catching calicos, or strawberry bass. There were other kinds of fish in the lake, like northern pike and walleye, but pike were too bony to eat, and my dad didn’t feel like going through the trouble of trying to catch walleye. I was too young to know if they actually were good fishing spots or not, and even today, not knowing enough about fishing, I don’t know how good they are. We never seemed to have much trouble catching anything, so I think there were probably worse places to fish on that lake.

I’ve got many fishing stories, but most of them would probably sound like the stereotypical variety. The fish in the story would be twice and long and weigh three times as much as the fish that was actually there. Usually, my mother takes great delight in telling this story, but one has to make do with me this time.

I live about a quarter mile from the Seneca River. When crossing over the bridge, I would look down and see people standing in the water fly-fishing. “That looks fun,” I thought. So one morning, I decided to do it. I woke up and put on a pair of faded blue jeans. It was damp and chilly, so I put on a gray, hooded sweatshirt. I put on my old, dirty sneakers (I was considerate at that age). I went outside the trailer and found my tiny, faded blue life jacket (I was safe, too). Now, if one knows anything about fly-fishing, I am missing a very important piece of clothing at this point. I’m not wearing hip waders. I was six, I didn’t know any better. I walk to the shore and begin to work my way into the cold water of the lake. I get to the point where I’m waist deep in water and cast the line. My first try? Nothing. I try again. Nothing. At this point, my mother comes out. “What are you doing?” she asks.

“I’m fishing,” I reply.

“Why are you standing waist deep in water?”

“I’m fishing like they do back home.”

“You’re not in a river. And if you were, you’re not wearing hip waders.”

“What’re those?”

I was called out of the water at this point. Needless to say, I didn’t catch anything.

I haven’t been fishing in a few years, for a variety of reasons. Simply put, I’ve outgrown it. Regardless, I’ll always remember what I’ve learned and the time that I spent enjoying it.

An Addendum

It’s 12:30 on a Saturday night, and I’m out with some friends. We all go to Limerick’s in Armory Square. I’m with Adam and Alex and a bunch of other people.

One of Adam’s friends decides he needs to smoke a cigarette, so we head out back. It’s a warm nigh, befitting the summer that’s going to be coming. There’s an outdoor area set up with a few tables and chairs. More people Adam knows are sitting at one table. Near them are two women talking. They’re both older. One of them seems more sober than the other. She’s wearing dark khakis and a long sleeved black shirt. The other one is wearing a black and white striped sundress and has strawberry blonde hair.

Adam and I sit down at the table with his friends. This puts me about five feet from the drunk woman. He friend goes back inside. For some reason, probably because she’s trashed, she turns to me.

“Hey, how old are you?”

No introduction, no lead in, just that question out of the blue.

“I’m 23.” Three expressions crossed her face right in a row. The first was a sad, “I’m too old to be here,” followed by, “23, eh? I can work with that,” and finally a sly, “Let’s see if mama’s still got it.”

“So, where are you from?” she asks

“I’m from Syracuse. Well, about 20 minutes away.”

Some sort of scene is happening behind us, so everyone turns to see what it is. As I turn back, Adam looks up at me, “Dude. What the fuck?”

“Look. I dunno. She just started talking to me.” He gives me this stupid, shit eating grin. “No. Absolutely not.” He just laughs at me.

“So, what do you do?” She’s starting to get coy. It’s kind of scary.

“I’m a student.”

“Oh really? Where? I’m not trying to pick you up or anything.”

That’s exactly what she’s trying to do. I’m just being polite, while trying to make it clear from the minimalism of my answers that that’s all I’m doing. She doesn’t really get the hint. “Oswego.”

“I really like your earrings.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m glad you don’t have those big holes in your ears. Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Tim over here? Hey, Tim, why do you have plugs?”

They talk for a few minutes. She’s confusing the word aesthetic with anesthetic. It’s sort of sad. Adam has also gotten up at this point and gone inside. He comes back out with the entire group that we showed up to the bar with. He leans over to me, “Dude, I had to get witnesses for this.”

”Thanks, asshole. At least she’s not talking to me, anymore.”

“So, what are you studying up at Oswego?”

God dammit, I spoke too soon. “I’m an Adolescent Education and English dual major?”

She looks at me funny. She’s so drunk she doesn’t know what those are. “So, what do you want to be when you grow up?” Ladies, if you’re ever going to cougar it up, don’t use that line. It makes us feel like we’re talking to our mother, and really, nothing is more unappealing than getting picked up by your mother.

“I’m going to be a high school English teacher.”

“Why do you want to do that?”

My God, the lady just won’t stop. I catch myself before I roll my eyes. “I like to read,” is the simplest answer I can come up with. I want this to be over as fast as possible.

“Yeah, but why?”

“So I can teach other kids to enjoy reading and when I’m grown up, I’ll have interesting people to talk to.” Okay, so that was sort of mean.

“Oh, that’s cool. I’m really not trying to pick you up.” I just shrug, smile, and shake my head. I’m 23, I’ve been blasted out of my mind before. I know how it is. “I’m just a little depressed. My friends decided to throw me a surprise 40^th birthday party.“ Adam can’t help himself. He bursts out laughing. “Let me give you some advice. Enjoy your 20’s, don’t marry young, and 20 years from now, remember this moment.” She gets up and walks away.

“You so totally should’ve hit that.”

“I’ll pass on that, thanks.”

“It would’ve been awesome. Just think of the story it could’ve been.”

“You know, I’m perfectly okay with how the story’s going now.”

“Whatever. I would’ve done it.”

“I know. But you’re drunk.”

“Shut the hell up. You and I both know that if you were drunk, you’d do it too.”

He’s got me. “Probably.”

Alex chimes in from behind me, “Dude, God must totally hate you.”

I think he’s right. Gay men on one end and 40 year old women in the throes of a midlife crisis on the other. Where the hell are all the really attractive 21-25 year olds? Seriously, it’s only fair.