“Just keep telling yourself: some day all the hippies will be dead.”*
68 Replies to “Another One Bites The Dust”
Carlin’s last show on cable, lamented the fact that the earth will take care of itself. We puny humans might create garbage, pollution, etc, but in the history of the earth, we are insignificant.
I liked George Carlin. His politics and mine were never a perfect match, but “the establishment” needs the occasional kick to the groin now and then, and George did it brilliantly.
I liked him too. Didn’t agree with everything he had to say but loved his method of delivery.
Oh, pffft. Carlin might have been “counter-culture” 30 years ago, but today he was as establishment as the average Hollywood actor. Rosie O’Donnell had a gig on the View, for crying out loud. What does that tell you about where the media culture is positioned today?
Gotta love the statement “he also weathered serious tax problems”
How precious. How perfectly indicative of the entire culture, the utter dismissal of any relationship between cause and effect.
Translation: he cheated his taxes and got caught.
No.
Still not right.
He committed a crime and got caught.
While “Seven words” was indeed hilarious in its day, Carlin’s lifestyle took a toll on his health leading him more to characterize a grumpy old man than a stand up comedian during the last decade or so. At the end of the day, one less hippy is a very good thing. They should all be buried with their rediculous air-cooled VW vans as well. There was a remnant with a gray pony-tail [and the van] living at the equestrian center down the hill from my place. He left at some point but I still miss buzzing him with my Cadillac.
You appear to be the minority on this one kate.
He had the guts to say what he believed even though it would hurt his career.
Imagine if more of the MSM had his courage.
I will forever kick my ass that I never saw him perform live.
Right of Center has it correct. This man was the ultimate free speech proponent exposing political correctness for exactly what it was and forcing people to consider the idea of language as expression. He never shyed away from issues considered volatile and his “7 words” skit was taken all the way the the Supreme Court in the US.
He will be missed.
I will forever kick my ass that I never saw him perform live.
Right of Center has it correct. This man was the ultimate free speech proponent exposing political correctness for exactly what it was and forcing people to consider the idea of language as expression. He never shyed away from issues considered volatile and his “7 words” skit was taken all the way the the Supreme Court in the US.
He will be missed.
Hurt his career? Like Paris Hilton hurts her career doing stupid things, I suppose.
News of his demise just swept the international news wire. When someone “hurts” their career, the only place you hear about them is wherearetheynow.com.
I saw him live in Vegas about 3 years ago. I gotta say I walked away pretty disappointed. He just wasn’t that funny. It’s possible he was trying out new material on the audience but it was just missing the marks and he went from satirical and witty to bitter and it came across in the non-funniness of his jokes. I had enjoyed much of his work over the years but this last show was basically a grumpy old hippie realizing nobody listened much to grumpy old hippies.
I always thought George was brilliant. His dissection of language, and twisting wordplay was always good for a laugh. I would agree however, that ol’ George jumped the shark about 10 years ago comedy-wise.
I purchased “Brain Droppings” hoping to find some of the brilliance that was Carlin’s stock in trade, but was saddened when it turned out the volume was most aptly named. Droppings indeed.
Controversy never truly hurts many celeb’s careers. As the old saw states “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”. George had a solid handle on this thought.
Goodbye George Carlin. I’ll miss your skewed view of life and your, for the most part, eloquent way of expressing it.
I never liked him, or found his insights to be anything but trite and banal.If you’re going to be an angry comic, at least be able to understand some universal truths.
“Just keep telling yourself: some day all the hippies will be dead.”
Hmmm I thought only commies politicized every aspect of life (and death)…guess I was wrong…seems a malady common to all dogmatists.
Socialist, communist or hippie, no matter what, he was a brilliant entertainer.
When Carlin got into a rant, he ripped you away from your hum-drum world and got you into some wild but oddly logical mind trip.
I saw his last ravings where he points out the gall we have to think we make such a vast difference to the global condition.
**We puny humans might create garbage, pollution, etc, but in the history of the earth, we are insignificant. **
Johnny Carson, Ed Sullivan and those who bestow awards held George in high esteem.
Guess I*m not alone on measuring Carlin. = TG
PS: Missing, Richard Prior. Different ballgame, same gift.
I too was once a fan but saw lately that he had digressed from a sharp and witty comedian to a bitter old fart. I still enjoy his role in Dogmata. Better to remember him for his early work, I guess.
btw, what is it about comedians that leads them to move from the routines that made them a sucess and turn into the most obnoxious unfunny character? Rosie and Rosanne both come to mind.
Carlin was a hack. His Seven Words was simply a riff on what every comedian did for generations — curse for effect. Ever since stand up started, comedians have cursed for laughs. Carlin relied on it, and made the swearing the point. Unlike Richard Pryor, who made cursing part of his language and credibility, Carlin used it as a crutch.
I’m no fan.
Carlin honed his craft on counter culture viewpoint in 1972 he was at his peak….. since then …well…. let’s just say that anyone who can milk one album for the next 30+ years must have had one hell of an album! G’bye George !
He was a comic? Surely, that was secondary to his career as narrator of the American Thomas the Tank Engine series.
It’s unfortunate that ideologues like Kate feel the need to run everything and everyone through their political filter. George C. was a funny guy and a good writer.
What a miserable life you must lead.
It has nothing to do with a political filter, and everything to do with a demographic filter.
Following the baby boom generation has been a bit of a nightmare.
We get the scraps, yet had to live with the social engineering and it’s results.
The hippies were a plague, the lifestyle they promoted was sloven at best, criminal at worst.
Read ‘The Road To Hell’; By Julian Sher and William Marsden’
and you will come away with the feeling that the Hyppies are more of a problem than the Hells Angels.
Utopia, morals engineering, Politicians making laws, lawyers representing the law, judges interpreting the laws(charter), Politicians appointing the Judges, Politicians allowing problems to grow (HA, scams), Politicians claiming only they can fix things, Hyppies reading Popular Mechanics and watching other Hyppies in Hollywood – start over again at Utopia.
Hells Angels are polite for one thing. And I don’t feel uneasy meeting one when I go in to use the ATM machine after the bank is closed (like I did yesterday).
Did anyone REALLY think George Carlin was funny?
This was someone who thought the best way to add zip to the joke, was to toss in another cuss word — or ten. No witt to speak of.
Dry and dull.
I thought he was dead a long time ago.
I suppose growing up in Saskatchewan excuses you for your total confusion. Carlin wasn’t a hippie. He was a businessman, and a pretty good one. He had a good routine as long as he kept it short. He was good at taking one topic and milking it.
Hell’s angels are polite? Sort of speaks for itself.
“Just keep telling yourself: some day all the hippies will be dead.” …
oh ya, and yer gonna live, like, forever eh?
The Right stuff:
* no sense of humour
* no respect for the dead
HA are a problem because some, Hippy syndrome, allow them to be. HA can be polite to 90% of the population(help change a tire) while ruining the lives of the other 10%.
Question; How come there are no HA in some other countries – Saudi Arabia, ect.
If a country’s gov’t truly wants to be virtually crime free, it can be.
But how many in the crime industry(both sides) would be out of work ?
Carlin was a hippy? Don’t think so, but he sure was a great comedian – and what made him great was the fact that his comedy bites, and of course for some the truth hurts.
Oh, and you don’t really prefer the Hell’s Angels to the hippies do you?
I don’t blame you guys for being pissed off at us. I’d feel screwed if Abba was my generation’s musical legacy as well. Sorry you missed the good stuff.
Just for an objective opinion – I just saw his stuff for the first time today. I haven’t seen it all, but from what I did see…this guy isn’t ‘brilliant’ or ‘funny’ at all. With apologies to the aging baby-boomer crowd…the guy pretty much sucked.
I am figuring that he is probably regretting all that anti-religous crap he spewed about now too.
😉
To Kate and all the other “grumpy” gen x-ers:
You missed the sixties, you weren’t even born then, you’re not boomers – Get Over It and try not to be so bitter. LOL!
Karlin was really new and funny in 1970…the first stoned comedian who was one of “Us”, stoned and up for “revolution”, who got it and cracked us all up to the point of tears..you had see him then, Man he was such a fresh perspective for the time when the older generation who won WWII were complete hard asses to this new demographic ‘taking over’ in so many ways. Battles were being fought every day in this regard, Vietnam, Chicago, Kent State until the ultimate victory in Watergate and the Nixon resignation.
Karlin was a jester in the court of conscientiousness warfare being waged in that time…so it is hard to judge him of late, out of time and context.
Goodnight George.
To Kate and all the other “grumpy” gen x-ers:
You missed the sixties, you weren’t even born then, you’re not boomers – Get Over It and try not to be so bitter. LOL!
Karlin was really new and funny in 1970…the first stoned comedian who was one of “Us”, stoned and up for “revolution”, who got it and cracked us all up to the point of tears..you had see him then, Man he was such a fresh perspective for the time when the older generation who won WWII were complete hard asses to this new demographic ‘taking over’ in so many ways. Battles were being fought every day in this regard, Vietnam, Chicago, Kent State until the ultimate victory in Watergate and the Nixon resignation.
Karlin was a jester in the court of conscientiousness warfare being waged in that time…so it is hard to judge him of late, out of time and context.
Goodnight George.
To Kate and all the other “grumpy” gen x-ers:
You missed the sixties, you weren’t even born then, you’re not boomers – Get Over It and try not to be so bitter. LOL!
Karlin was really new and funny in 1970…the first stoned comedian who was one of “Us”, stoned and up for “revolution”, who got it and cracked us all up to the point of tears..you had see him then, Man he was such a fresh perspective for the time when the older generation who won WWII were complete hard asses to this new demographic ‘taking over’ in so many ways. Battles were being fought every day in this regard, Vietnam, Chicago, Kent State until the ultimate victory in Watergate and the Nixon resignation.
Karlin was a jester in the court of conscientiousness warfare being waged in that time…so it is hard to judge him of late, out of time and context.
Goodnight George.
Well Don. I did not miss the sixty’s, I was a child then. And what I saw made a very deep impression on me.
My older cousins, so stoned that they would piss themselves because they could not make it to the washroom.
Women so wired, that they allowed themselves to be used as pin cushions.
My father using a bat to get the junkies out of our car(using it to shoot up, u know, b4 needle exchanges came along).
Total reprobates, too lazy to work, 12-14 of them sharing one apartment.
And you know what, I am sure every last one of them loved the “stoned” comedian as well.
Good riddance to you all, as the chosen lifestyle of idleness and substance abuse is now catching up.
They are dropping like flies, and they only have themselves to blame.
Every once in a while, the owner of this blog gets caught looking like an idiot in her attempt to out ‘Ann Coulter’ Ann Coulter with nastiness and contrived outrage.
I just keep telling myself, “some day all the right wing rural leather biker babes will be dead.”
“They are dropping like flies, and they only have themselves to blame.
Well, yes, that, as well as a thing called age.
The mad was 71 kingstonlad. I’m not sure how much he accelerated his visit with his maker with all his toking.
His use of the English langunge was about more than swearing. He was terrific at poking holes in inflated self importance and egos.
Try finding some early HBO specials or live recordings. They may be dated – as most of his comedy is topical not unexpected – but see past that to hear the use of language.
To call him a hack, or use his name in the same sentence as Paris Hiltion is to not understand his importance in the comedy world during the ’70’s through the 90’s if not beyond.
When I was a kid I thought Carlin was funny, but then I grew up……
Thanks for reminding me how good George was at pissing off the right people.
Your bitterness is a helpful tonic at a time of loss.
There are quite a few posters here who expect their taste to be enjoyed by all, and if not, well then…
Well kingstonlad,
I think you’re a little confused and a little late:
1) Booze makes you pee not pot.
2) By the time the needlehead/junkies came around the scene, it was mostly over and everybody was back to university again getting educated to work INSIDE the system to ‘really’ change it. Needleheads in that time were generally not university students nor very intelligent..apples and oranges
3) Most of the hippies I knew back then ‘in the day’ grew up in suburbia originally, so did not experience junkies in their neighborhoods..ever
4)Having shared tenancy happened all the time as being in our late teens early twenties, we were just learning to live outside our parents home’s for the first time and at university it was quite common the share the cost of the rent at co-ops etc
5)As to ‘idleness’ and ‘laziness’ you speak of..I know that quite a few of those same people from those old hippie days of the late 60s early 70s that enjoyed a little pot, a little Carlin, a little rock and roll and a hefty dose of consciousness raising and education in that time, and they are now mostly all exceedingly well off/retired, are very active physically biking, jogging, canoeing etc, eat lots of vegetables and fruits and still dabble in the odd spliff to this day!
So put that in your ‘ill informed’ pipe and smoke it and try not be so bitter.
Have a nice life!!
Some people are stupid. Let me use quantum mechanics to explain 🙂
For those of you not familiar with the subject, it’s a field of physics that came along in the 1920s to throw a wrench in the gears of Newtonian determinism.
It is now the most rigorously proven major fields of physics.
It was so hotly contested in its day, despite the evidence, that it took the death of an entire generation of physicists to loosen the reins of orthodoxy and permit unfettered research into its applications.
Someday all the hippies will be dead.
And if we are so blessed, their works with them.
Speak ill of the dead? Why not, if true? The society that sanctioned that hypocricy as a social grace had limited its venues of applicability (eulogies, speaking to friends and family immediately after the death, etc.).
That society, thanks to the hippies, is also dead. Methinks this special pleading should also be deep-sixed.
I never really found him all that funny, but I appreciate Carlin’s oppositional stance to orthodoxy in general. For example this finger-in-the-eye against the environmentalistas:
“Compared to the people, the planet has been here four and a half billion years…we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years? Two hundred years, versus four and a half billion, and we have the conceit to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re going to put in jeopardy this little blue-green ball that’s just a floating around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, Volcanoes, plate techtonics, continental drifts, solar flares, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages — and we think some plastic bags and some aluminium cans are going to make a difference?….
“The planet will be here for a long, long, long time after we’re done, and it will heal itself, and it will cleanse itself ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic.
“The earth doesn’t share out prejudice towards plastic; plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children — could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place: it wanted plastic for itself, didn’t know how to make it, needed us.
“Could be the answer to our age-old philosophical question why are we here: ‘Plastic, ***holes.’”
And someday, all the right wing yahoos will be dead.
What does that tell you about where the media culture is positioned today?
Posted by: Kate
You mean like Faux’s “Half Hour News Hour”? That’s what passes for humour in yahooland? Carlin on his worst day {including yesterday} could not be more pathetic.
He was funny once upon a time, but then he went from edgy and irreverent to angry and irrelevant.
No, right wing yahoos are forever. We resist the fashion trends.
And I think you’re thinking of The Daily Show – another example where shared assumption and bitterness is mistaken for comedy, though it’s very much the modern orthodoxy that Carlin came to typify.
Wow, are you guys ever sounding old and just as grouchy as George at the end! Best musical ever was Hair. Great times in the sixties, super music, no violence, Mariposa Folk Festival, Yorkville, wild outfits that look so weird today and lovely ladies. Always remember Carlin talking about his old Catholic highschool, Our Lady of Perpetual Motion. Life was good and I had enough hair to grow an Afro, really miss those times.
to find out the way most of us are, listen to the “stuff” rant. He was always on the attack, and funny.
Carlin’s last show on cable, lamented the fact that the earth will take care of itself. We puny humans might create garbage, pollution, etc, but in the history of the earth, we are insignificant.
I liked George Carlin. His politics and mine were never a perfect match, but “the establishment” needs the occasional kick to the groin now and then, and George did it brilliantly.
I liked him too. Didn’t agree with everything he had to say but loved his method of delivery.
Oh, pffft. Carlin might have been “counter-culture” 30 years ago, but today he was as establishment as the average Hollywood actor. Rosie O’Donnell had a gig on the View, for crying out loud. What does that tell you about where the media culture is positioned today?
I liked him, here is a great piece he did on “saving the planet”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScDfYzMEEw
Gotta love the statement “he also weathered serious tax problems”
How precious. How perfectly indicative of the entire culture, the utter dismissal of any relationship between cause and effect.
Translation: he cheated his taxes and got caught.
No.
Still not right.
He committed a crime and got caught.
While “Seven words” was indeed hilarious in its day, Carlin’s lifestyle took a toll on his health leading him more to characterize a grumpy old man than a stand up comedian during the last decade or so. At the end of the day, one less hippy is a very good thing. They should all be buried with their rediculous air-cooled VW vans as well. There was a remnant with a gray pony-tail [and the van] living at the equestrian center down the hill from my place. He left at some point but I still miss buzzing him with my Cadillac.
You appear to be the minority on this one kate.
He had the guts to say what he believed even though it would hurt his career.
Imagine if more of the MSM had his courage.
I will forever kick my ass that I never saw him perform live.
Right of Center has it correct. This man was the ultimate free speech proponent exposing political correctness for exactly what it was and forcing people to consider the idea of language as expression. He never shyed away from issues considered volatile and his “7 words” skit was taken all the way the the Supreme Court in the US.
He will be missed.
I will forever kick my ass that I never saw him perform live.
Right of Center has it correct. This man was the ultimate free speech proponent exposing political correctness for exactly what it was and forcing people to consider the idea of language as expression. He never shyed away from issues considered volatile and his “7 words” skit was taken all the way the the Supreme Court in the US.
He will be missed.
Hurt his career? Like Paris Hilton hurts her career doing stupid things, I suppose.
News of his demise just swept the international news wire. When someone “hurts” their career, the only place you hear about them is wherearetheynow.com.
I saw him live in Vegas about 3 years ago. I gotta say I walked away pretty disappointed. He just wasn’t that funny. It’s possible he was trying out new material on the audience but it was just missing the marks and he went from satirical and witty to bitter and it came across in the non-funniness of his jokes. I had enjoyed much of his work over the years but this last show was basically a grumpy old hippie realizing nobody listened much to grumpy old hippies.
I always thought George was brilliant. His dissection of language, and twisting wordplay was always good for a laugh. I would agree however, that ol’ George jumped the shark about 10 years ago comedy-wise.
I purchased “Brain Droppings” hoping to find some of the brilliance that was Carlin’s stock in trade, but was saddened when it turned out the volume was most aptly named. Droppings indeed.
Controversy never truly hurts many celeb’s careers. As the old saw states “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”. George had a solid handle on this thought.
Goodbye George Carlin. I’ll miss your skewed view of life and your, for the most part, eloquent way of expressing it.
I never liked him, or found his insights to be anything but trite and banal.If you’re going to be an angry comic, at least be able to understand some universal truths.
“Just keep telling yourself: some day all the hippies will be dead.”
Hmmm I thought only commies politicized every aspect of life (and death)…guess I was wrong…seems a malady common to all dogmatists.
Socialist, communist or hippie, no matter what, he was a brilliant entertainer.
When Carlin got into a rant, he ripped you away from your hum-drum world and got you into some wild but oddly logical mind trip.
I saw his last ravings where he points out the gall we have to think we make such a vast difference to the global condition.
**We puny humans might create garbage, pollution, etc, but in the history of the earth, we are insignificant. **
Johnny Carson, Ed Sullivan and those who bestow awards held George in high esteem.
Guess I*m not alone on measuring Carlin. = TG
PS: Missing, Richard Prior. Different ballgame, same gift.
I too was once a fan but saw lately that he had digressed from a sharp and witty comedian to a bitter old fart. I still enjoy his role in Dogmata. Better to remember him for his early work, I guess.
btw, what is it about comedians that leads them to move from the routines that made them a sucess and turn into the most obnoxious unfunny character? Rosie and Rosanne both come to mind.
Carlin was a hack. His Seven Words was simply a riff on what every comedian did for generations — curse for effect. Ever since stand up started, comedians have cursed for laughs. Carlin relied on it, and made the swearing the point. Unlike Richard Pryor, who made cursing part of his language and credibility, Carlin used it as a crutch.
I’m no fan.
Carlin honed his craft on counter culture viewpoint in 1972 he was at his peak….. since then …well…. let’s just say that anyone who can milk one album for the next 30+ years must have had one hell of an album! G’bye George !
He was a comic? Surely, that was secondary to his career as narrator of the American Thomas the Tank Engine series.
It’s unfortunate that ideologues like Kate feel the need to run everything and everyone through their political filter. George C. was a funny guy and a good writer.
What a miserable life you must lead.
It has nothing to do with a political filter, and everything to do with a demographic filter.
Following the baby boom generation has been a bit of a nightmare.
We get the scraps, yet had to live with the social engineering and it’s results.
The hippies were a plague, the lifestyle they promoted was sloven at best, criminal at worst.
Read ‘The Road To Hell’; By Julian Sher and William Marsden’
and you will come away with the feeling that the Hyppies are more of a problem than the Hells Angels.
Utopia, morals engineering, Politicians making laws, lawyers representing the law, judges interpreting the laws(charter), Politicians appointing the Judges, Politicians allowing problems to grow (HA, scams), Politicians claiming only they can fix things, Hyppies reading Popular Mechanics and watching other Hyppies in Hollywood – start over again at Utopia.
Hells Angels are polite for one thing. And I don’t feel uneasy meeting one when I go in to use the ATM machine after the bank is closed (like I did yesterday).
Did anyone REALLY think George Carlin was funny?
This was someone who thought the best way to add zip to the joke, was to toss in another cuss word — or ten. No witt to speak of.
Dry and dull.
I thought he was dead a long time ago.
I suppose growing up in Saskatchewan excuses you for your total confusion. Carlin wasn’t a hippie. He was a businessman, and a pretty good one. He had a good routine as long as he kept it short. He was good at taking one topic and milking it.
Hell’s angels are polite? Sort of speaks for itself.
“Just keep telling yourself: some day all the hippies will be dead.” …
oh ya, and yer gonna live, like, forever eh?
The Right stuff:
* no sense of humour
* no respect for the dead
HA are a problem because some, Hippy syndrome, allow them to be. HA can be polite to 90% of the population(help change a tire) while ruining the lives of the other 10%.
Question; How come there are no HA in some other countries – Saudi Arabia, ect.
If a country’s gov’t truly wants to be virtually crime free, it can be.
But how many in the crime industry(both sides) would be out of work ?
Carlin was a hippy? Don’t think so, but he sure was a great comedian – and what made him great was the fact that his comedy bites, and of course for some the truth hurts.
Oh, and you don’t really prefer the Hell’s Angels to the hippies do you?
I don’t blame you guys for being pissed off at us. I’d feel screwed if Abba was my generation’s musical legacy as well. Sorry you missed the good stuff.
Just for an objective opinion – I just saw his stuff for the first time today. I haven’t seen it all, but from what I did see…this guy isn’t ‘brilliant’ or ‘funny’ at all. With apologies to the aging baby-boomer crowd…the guy pretty much sucked.
I am figuring that he is probably regretting all that anti-religous crap he spewed about now too.
😉
To Kate and all the other “grumpy” gen x-ers:
You missed the sixties, you weren’t even born then, you’re not boomers – Get Over It and try not to be so bitter. LOL!
Karlin was really new and funny in 1970…the first stoned comedian who was one of “Us”, stoned and up for “revolution”, who got it and cracked us all up to the point of tears..you had see him then, Man he was such a fresh perspective for the time when the older generation who won WWII were complete hard asses to this new demographic ‘taking over’ in so many ways. Battles were being fought every day in this regard, Vietnam, Chicago, Kent State until the ultimate victory in Watergate and the Nixon resignation.
Karlin was a jester in the court of conscientiousness warfare being waged in that time…so it is hard to judge him of late, out of time and context.
Goodnight George.
To Kate and all the other “grumpy” gen x-ers:
You missed the sixties, you weren’t even born then, you’re not boomers – Get Over It and try not to be so bitter. LOL!
Karlin was really new and funny in 1970…the first stoned comedian who was one of “Us”, stoned and up for “revolution”, who got it and cracked us all up to the point of tears..you had see him then, Man he was such a fresh perspective for the time when the older generation who won WWII were complete hard asses to this new demographic ‘taking over’ in so many ways. Battles were being fought every day in this regard, Vietnam, Chicago, Kent State until the ultimate victory in Watergate and the Nixon resignation.
Karlin was a jester in the court of conscientiousness warfare being waged in that time…so it is hard to judge him of late, out of time and context.
Goodnight George.
To Kate and all the other “grumpy” gen x-ers:
You missed the sixties, you weren’t even born then, you’re not boomers – Get Over It and try not to be so bitter. LOL!
Karlin was really new and funny in 1970…the first stoned comedian who was one of “Us”, stoned and up for “revolution”, who got it and cracked us all up to the point of tears..you had see him then, Man he was such a fresh perspective for the time when the older generation who won WWII were complete hard asses to this new demographic ‘taking over’ in so many ways. Battles were being fought every day in this regard, Vietnam, Chicago, Kent State until the ultimate victory in Watergate and the Nixon resignation.
Karlin was a jester in the court of conscientiousness warfare being waged in that time…so it is hard to judge him of late, out of time and context.
Goodnight George.
Well Don. I did not miss the sixty’s, I was a child then. And what I saw made a very deep impression on me.
My older cousins, so stoned that they would piss themselves because they could not make it to the washroom.
Women so wired, that they allowed themselves to be used as pin cushions.
My father using a bat to get the junkies out of our car(using it to shoot up, u know, b4 needle exchanges came along).
Total reprobates, too lazy to work, 12-14 of them sharing one apartment.
And you know what, I am sure every last one of them loved the “stoned” comedian as well.
Good riddance to you all, as the chosen lifestyle of idleness and substance abuse is now catching up.
They are dropping like flies, and they only have themselves to blame.
Every once in a while, the owner of this blog gets caught looking like an idiot in her attempt to out ‘Ann Coulter’ Ann Coulter with nastiness and contrived outrage.
I just keep telling myself, “some day all the right wing rural leather biker babes will be dead.”
“They are dropping like flies, and they only have themselves to blame.
Well, yes, that, as well as a thing called age.
The mad was 71 kingstonlad. I’m not sure how much he accelerated his visit with his maker with all his toking.
His use of the English langunge was about more than swearing. He was terrific at poking holes in inflated self importance and egos.
Try finding some early HBO specials or live recordings. They may be dated – as most of his comedy is topical not unexpected – but see past that to hear the use of language.
To call him a hack, or use his name in the same sentence as Paris Hiltion is to not understand his importance in the comedy world during the ’70’s through the 90’s if not beyond.
When I was a kid I thought Carlin was funny, but then I grew up……
Thanks for reminding me how good George was at pissing off the right people.
Your bitterness is a helpful tonic at a time of loss.
There are quite a few posters here who expect their taste to be enjoyed by all, and if not, well then…
Well kingstonlad,
I think you’re a little confused and a little late:
1) Booze makes you pee not pot.
2) By the time the needlehead/junkies came around the scene, it was mostly over and everybody was back to university again getting educated to work INSIDE the system to ‘really’ change it. Needleheads in that time were generally not university students nor very intelligent..apples and oranges
3) Most of the hippies I knew back then ‘in the day’ grew up in suburbia originally, so did not experience junkies in their neighborhoods..ever
4)Having shared tenancy happened all the time as being in our late teens early twenties, we were just learning to live outside our parents home’s for the first time and at university it was quite common the share the cost of the rent at co-ops etc
5)As to ‘idleness’ and ‘laziness’ you speak of..I know that quite a few of those same people from those old hippie days of the late 60s early 70s that enjoyed a little pot, a little Carlin, a little rock and roll and a hefty dose of consciousness raising and education in that time, and they are now mostly all exceedingly well off/retired, are very active physically biking, jogging, canoeing etc, eat lots of vegetables and fruits and still dabble in the odd spliff to this day!
So put that in your ‘ill informed’ pipe and smoke it and try not be so bitter.
Have a nice life!!
Some people are stupid. Let me use quantum mechanics to explain 🙂
For those of you not familiar with the subject, it’s a field of physics that came along in the 1920s to throw a wrench in the gears of Newtonian determinism.
It is now the most rigorously proven major fields of physics.
It was so hotly contested in its day, despite the evidence, that it took the death of an entire generation of physicists to loosen the reins of orthodoxy and permit unfettered research into its applications.
Someday all the hippies will be dead.
And if we are so blessed, their works with them.
Speak ill of the dead? Why not, if true? The society that sanctioned that hypocricy as a social grace had limited its venues of applicability (eulogies, speaking to friends and family immediately after the death, etc.).
That society, thanks to the hippies, is also dead. Methinks this special pleading should also be deep-sixed.
I never really found him all that funny, but I appreciate Carlin’s oppositional stance to orthodoxy in general. For example this finger-in-the-eye against the environmentalistas:
“Compared to the people, the planet has been here four and a half billion years…we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years? Two hundred years, versus four and a half billion, and we have the conceit to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re going to put in jeopardy this little blue-green ball that’s just a floating around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, Volcanoes, plate techtonics, continental drifts, solar flares, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages — and we think some plastic bags and some aluminium cans are going to make a difference?….
“The planet will be here for a long, long, long time after we’re done, and it will heal itself, and it will cleanse itself ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic.
“The earth doesn’t share out prejudice towards plastic; plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children — could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place: it wanted plastic for itself, didn’t know how to make it, needed us.
“Could be the answer to our age-old philosophical question why are we here: ‘Plastic, ***holes.’”
And someday, all the right wing yahoos will be dead.
What does that tell you about where the media culture is positioned today?
Posted by: Kate
You mean like Faux’s “Half Hour News Hour”? That’s what passes for humour in yahooland? Carlin on his worst day {including yesterday} could not be more pathetic.
He was funny once upon a time, but then he went from edgy and irreverent to angry and irrelevant.
No, right wing yahoos are forever. We resist the fashion trends.
And I think you’re thinking of The Daily Show – another example where shared assumption and bitterness is mistaken for comedy, though it’s very much the modern orthodoxy that Carlin came to typify.
Wow, are you guys ever sounding old and just as grouchy as George at the end! Best musical ever was Hair. Great times in the sixties, super music, no violence, Mariposa Folk Festival, Yorkville, wild outfits that look so weird today and lovely ladies. Always remember Carlin talking about his old Catholic highschool, Our Lady of Perpetual Motion. Life was good and I had enough hair to grow an Afro, really miss those times.
to find out the way most of us are, listen to the “stuff” rant. He was always on the attack, and funny.