posted 06-24-2008 09:24 PM                       

quote: Steve Guttag

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I could listen to "200 mph" or "Wonderfulness" every day and not get bored with them.

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Those two records probably have the best of the Bill Cosby "sound effects." Two mega-classics! They'd be in my top ten comedy albums along with a couple or three of Carlin's.

posted 06-24-2008 09:51 PM                       

quote:

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My One Big Moment with George Carlin
posted by Andrew Kiraly
Tuesday, Jun. 24, 2008 at 12:10 PM



Reader Gabriel Gentile writes:

On June 14, I went to see George Carlin give a live performance at the Orleans hotel/casino. I had seen him live several times before, but this time was going to be special because, for the first time, I was going to go backstage to meet him.

I think the first time I ever saw George Carlin in any medium was when I was 10 years old. I saw him performing on television and thought, “Why are all these people laughing? He’s not telling any jokes - he’s just yelling and cursing.” With that, I changed the channel back to someone I considered much funnier at the time, Fat Albert.

Years went by and my naiveté shriveled as my vocabulary grew, particularly when it came to epithets. It didn’t take me long to discover that the ideas espoused by Fat Albert (good will always triumph over evil, drugs are BAD, the police are your friends, etc.) were as flat and flimsy as he was. I was without someone who could both serve as a personal role model and make me laugh at the same time.

When all the sudden, here was this guy who was older than my father, yet somehow younger than me. This chronological freak would go on to be my favorite fool, a source of new ideas (question everything, don’t be afraid to speak your mind, 9 times out of 10 the majority is wrong) and a voice I would always keep handy when I needed some comfort in a world seemingly gone mad from the fumes of its own bullshit.

Anyway, back to the show… George came out and knocked it right out of the park. I couldn’t stop laughing, even at the stuff I had heard from him before. There was just something about seeing him live that made it all seem fresh and new. He even did a new routine about music that he was working on for his next HBO special.

Soon enough the show was over and me, my friend Greg and Dan, the fellow who set the whole thing up, get up from our seats and head backstage. A moment later, George comes out wearing a baseball cap and eyeglasses. He says hello to Dan first, shaking his hand and chatting for a bit. Then he turns to look at me, standing there in my jeans and Superman T-shirt and asks, “Is this the comic”? He walks over to me and says, “Hey, what’s your name?” I say, “My name is Gabriel, sir.” He says “Gabe! It’s great to meet you,” and starts shaking my hand.

I had given a lot of thought to just what exactly I was going to say to this man who had provided so much more than laughter to my life, and I figured it was now or never. “Mr. Carlin,” I said, “I know you probably want to get the hell out of here, so I just wanted to say, thank you for teaching a kid who had to grow up in a place like Las Vegas that it was okay to be something other than a soulless shithead with a lot of money.”

George laughed for a moment, and then, right then and there, George Carlin gave me some advice that, unlike that which he had given me through his work, was mine and mine alone.

“Well, you just keep being yourself and have fun with it. If you like what you’re doing, they’ll come… Trust me.”

A photograph and an autograph later, and that was that. Eight days later, I receive a text-message on my phone from my friend, Gilbert. It contained only three words.

“George Carlin died.”

I looked at the message for a long while, rubbing my chin and thinking, especially about what George said to me the one and only time I got to meet him.

Finally, after much thought, I texted Gilbert back:

“Well what did you expect him to do, fart nickels?”

So long, George … and thanks for the advice.

_____

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 12:10 pm and is filed under CityBlog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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posted 06-24-2008 10:37 PM                       

quote:

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Cosby's Revenge and Carlin's Occupation: Foole

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Cosby:
...somebody hit me in the face...with a slushball! And I looked around with one eye, and there's ol' Junior Barnes just a-laughin.' 'Cosby, I got ya real good, I hit ya real good didn't I?' And I cursed at him, I was so mad: YOU GUNKIE!!

Carlin:
And then one day, grass SWEPT the neighborhood...and gang-fighting WENT AWAY!



I need to play these again...haven't heard them in a while.

posted 06-26-2008 11:47 AM                    

quote:

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‘A God Who Cussed’

Director Kevin Smith remembers George Carlin

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.

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