Like many of you, my day got off to a bad start with the news of the passing of comedian George Carlin last night of heart failure in Santa Monica, CA. We’ve lost a true icon, and his imprint is readily apparent all over this blog, as he heavily influenced both the way I write and even the way I talk sometimes. Although I’m trying to avoid becoming the curmudgeon that he was in his later years, I’ve adopted a lot of Carlin’s attitudes (especially about religious phoniness) over time, and his impact on me is immeasurable. I think what sets GC apart from most comedians is in addition to being funny, the man made you think. It’s eerily ironic that George passed away near the "scene of the crime", so to speak, where he recorded his most famous routine, "The Seven Dirty Words…" at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1972. Truth be known, he didn’t have to rely on the use of profanity—he was plenty funny without it as evidenced on his rather obscure Take-offs & Put-ons album (recorded during the Johnson administration). About the dirtiest word Carlin used there was "broad", and it’s a damn funny record. And yes, George is the man I learned profanity from in the first place, for better or worse, and he used it to great effect in punctuating his routines without overdoing it—i.e., every other word wasn’t "fuck" or "motherfucker" like with Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock.The first thing I thought of when I heard George "passed on" (as he preferred saying instead of "died") was a bit he did on death and dying from about 30 years ago. I wondered if George got his Two-Minute Warning ("Two minutes—get your shit together…") and I wondered if he made arrangements to forego the whole funeral/cremation thing and be "blown up", per his wishes. George once even poked fun at the very condition that caused his death in a bit he called the "Comedians' Health Sweepstakes": "Currently, I lead Richard Pryor in heart attacks, two-to-one. But Richard leads me one-to-nothing in burning yourself up!" At least Carlin's passing was swift and we're spared of seeing him waste away before our eyes as in Pryor's case.
Carlin (along with the late John Entwistle) is one of my few idols whom I actually got to meet in the flesh, and he was very gracious in autographing my concert program that night. George also indirectly saved the day for me one snowed-in New Year’s Eve back in the mid ‘80s. I was really bummed because I wanted to go out and party, but the weather outside was frightful, so I wound up staying in, and thankfully, HBO ran several of Carlin’s hour-long specials in succession that night, and he nearly had me on the floor at times. Even though I’ve heard his routines from his old albums a thousand times and know most of them verbatim, some of them still make me laugh out loud to this day. Stuff like when he lamented having "no ass at all" as a teen and having a black dude come up to him and say, "Say, baby, where your ass at? My man ain’t got no ass! How do you hold them pants up, man?" Or how about a new cartoon character: "Who are you? I am Fuck! Fuck of the Mountain! Tune in again next week to ‘Fuck of the Mountain’!" Or sports teams: "I’m tired of Panthers and Tigers and Wildcats…I’d like to root for the Cincinnati Mice!...Any animal that’s alive ought to be eligible to be (named) for a team—the Seattle Sperm…Texas Tumors…how about the Kansas City Crabs? ‘Well, the Crabs are all over the Cowboys today…" His dog bits were especially funny, too. "Anybody got one of those little dogs? One of those over-bred dogs? The kind that just shakes and pisses all the time..."
The DJ who delivered the bad news today suggested something cool, too—next time you open a fresh loaf of bread and start digging through it to get to the "good bread", think of George. By extension, next time you’re on an escalator and notice the hand rail moving just a little faster than the thing you’re standing on or find that "one weird piece of bacon" underneath all those neat horizontal strips, or maybe pass by the St. Louis Home For The Totally Fucked, think of George. Another favorite routine was "Ed Sullivan, Self-Taught" from the FM & AM album where George lamented that there was no official finale to the "Ed Sullivan Show" because it was cancelled while in reruns and no one got a chance to say, "Thanks, Ed! No kidding, man, thanks for all those crazy acts and all those years…" and sadly we didn’t get a chance to collectively thank George Carlin, although it was just announced that he was to receive an award named after Mark Twain for his lifetime achievements in humor. All I can think to do is paraphrase Carlin himself from that routine and say, "(It’s) A little maudlin, gang, but thanks, George!"
Here’s my original official tribute to George from last year on his 70th birthday.
WITH A NOD TOWARD TO THE DEARLY-DEPARTED…
…I made this Carlin-esque observation over the weekend while watching TV news coverage of the flooding on the Mississippi: Why is it that rivers on road maps are shown in blue? Rivers are brown! Okay, lakes and oceans are blue (or green), but I’ve never seen a blue river, not even the one I cross every day on the way to work and back that's called the Blue River! Which of course, reminds me of Carlin’s burning question: "Why is there no blue food? Blueberries are purple…there’s no blue food, man!"
THEY CALL ME MISTER JONES!
Evidently, chronic NFL miscreant Adam "Pacman" Jones is insisting that the media refer to him as just plain Adam Jones, as only his mother and his teammates are allowed to call him by his video game moniker. This fucker has a rap sheet on him that stretches from Maine to Maui, and all he’s worried about is what people in the media call him? They can call him "Donkey Kong" Jones for all I care—it’s not going to change the fact that he’s first-class moron…
SPEAKING OF FIRST-CLASS MORONS...
The great Don Imus is in hot water again over racially-charged remarks he made on his new radio show today about Pacman Jones. Apparently, during a discussion on his show about Jones' numerous arrests, Imus had to ask, "What color is he?" When told that Jones is "African-American", Dickhead Don responded, "There you go. Now we know." And now of course, Al Sharpton is already into full-goose-bozo race-baiter mode, but we won't get into that now...
My issue here is about how pathetically uninformed Imus is. You don't even have to be much of a sports fan to know what color Pacman Jones is, and unless you've been living in a cave like Osama bin Laden for the past couple years, surely you'd have seen him in the headlines a few times. One would expect a nationally-syndicated radio host like Imus be a tad more well-rounded than this, but then again, this is the same man who had to ask a couple years ago if Johnny Unitas was still alive. I bet even bin Laden knows what color Pacman Jones is...
COULD YOU BE JUST A BIT MORE SUBTLE?
I damn near ran my car off the road the other morning when I heard race driver Danica Patrick on a radio commercial say, "A lot of people ask me what it takes to get under my hood…" Whoa, Nellie! This reminds of the old E-Z Off TV ad that comedian Gallagher once mentioned about the gal laying in bed proudly proclaiming "I’m cleaning my oven!" He said, "Her hands are under the covers—you figure it out…"
THE TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'
In a sure sign of the apocalypse, I was stunned the other day to discover that my little podunk conservative-Christian-dominated suburb of Raytown, MO now has a fetish-wear store! This is no mean feat considering how the Baptists own half the friggin' city, and once blocked the opening of a bar because it was located too close to one of their churches. Never mind that half the congregation would have patronized it...
THROW THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATH WATER—PLEASE!
I’ve grown weary of yet another advertising icon (for lack of a better word), the creepy E-Trader.com talking baby. These ads weren’t all that funny to begin with, and now they’re running them into the ground not unlike the Geico gecko ads. At least Budweiser knows "when to say when", so to speak, and not wear their ad campaigns out, like the Spuds McKenzie thing, the lizards/ferret series and their "skunky beer" ads, et al. If they remain true-to-form, those lame "Dude!" ads should disappear soon…
THEY DIDN'T BOBBLE THE BOBBLEHEADS THIS TIME...
It was Alex Gordon bobblehead night at the Royals game at Kauffman Stadium the other night. Fortunately, Big Al's surname was correctly spelled on the ones the Royals gave away, unlike these little numbers in the photo given away a couple years back by their AAA affiliate in Omaha. Not only did they misspell the man's last name, but he has yet to play an inning of baseball in Omaha! It might have been appropriate for them to have Gordn Lightfoot sing the national anthem and NASCAR's Jeff Gordn to throw out the first pitch...I'LL TAKE DOLLY PARTON SONGS FOR $100, ALEX...
The answer is: A tune all about sloppy seconds. What is "Here You Come Again"?
D'OH! I GOT SAND IN MY TOES!
I don't know how these guys do this, but I'm most impressed...
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