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George Carlin is dead :(

Odd coincidence.

A post I made just four days ago - I believe the first one I ever made referencing George Carlin.

"I know for a fact that I learned the word "retrospect" from a George Carlin routine. And perhaps a lot more. "
 
boooeee said:
The Carlin of the last 20 years was much different than the Carlin from the seventies. I much prefer the one from the seventies.
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"Saliva can cause stomach cancer. But only if swallowed in small quantities over a long period of time."
 
BPSCG said:
I'm going to be the spoilsport here.

George Carlin was the original master of raging against the machine while using the machine to get rich.

He railed against big evil corporations.

But big evil corporations produced his recordings. Big evil corporations marketed his recordings. Big evil productions produced his TV specials. Big evil corporations owned the theaters where he performed.

He got rich by selling you his product, with the able assistance of big evil corporations that he tried to tell you were ripping you off.

If it weren't for big evil corporations that George Carlin pretended to hate, nobody would ever had heard of George Carlin.

---snip---

But don't think for a minute that he really hated the big evil corporations that made him rich. That was just a stage persona.
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I've considered this several times myself, being a semi-fan of Carlin for a long time, but I am more inclined to give him something of a benefit of the doubt.

How does one get a message against the machine out other than by using the machine?
 
Carlin could be extremely funny and yet appear to be extremely bitter. To some he was an icon of social commentary and they place him on a pedestal which, in my opinion, isn't appropiate. He was a comedic entertainer who in many ways help pioneer social comedy and that is how George should be remembered. He didn't offer solutions to societies ills and he certainly didn't want people looking to him for answers. He wanted to entertain and get paid for it. That's what he did.
If someone were to ask George for a serious solution to a social problem he would have probably said, "Figure it out yourself *****!"
 
I always liked his kooky news items like the strange new disease with no symptoms or the research team who found no ill effects from smoking marijuana (and the moon is trying to kill us).

I wouldn't be too hard on him for using the big corporate machine. If he hadn't we probably never would have heard of him.
 
All great comedy is created from either rage or pain...

...or in the case of Kathy Griffin, terrible comedy is created to elicit them. :p


RIP George. You were one of the very best ever.
 
I remember as a kid, my parents borrowed a record player and some of his records and made tape recordings of them to play later.. My friends and I weren't allowed to listen to them (though we did, of course) except for one bit he did about farts. If there were parts of his act then that offended, I just let it slide.

Much later, and still marginally Catholic, some of his stuff grated me a bit, but did make some sense or had me wondering. Not enough, but perhaps a little. Then much later, I read a book of his (though I think largely based on his routine) and appreciated it quite a bit more.

I've never forgotten this snip, from when I was a kid, "Farts are cute, farts are fun. Farts are **** without the mess."
 
BPSCG said:
Yeah, he could be funny. His comparison of baseball and football was wonderful. But don't think for a minute that he really hated the big evil corporations that made him rich. That was just a stage persona.
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Maybe yes and Maybe no. It is pretty easy to rationalize such things when there is a large amount of money at stake.
 
Hello friends. This is my first post here, and an unfortunate circumstance indeed.

There was one stand-up routine, I think it was in NYC post-9/11, where Carlin ended with a long bizarre rant all about the world collapsing into chaos, and then the space-time continuum opened and everyone's "uncle dave" came back to the Earth. And somehow- it all worked out for the best.

I think this may have been the most honest rant Carlin ever shared: behind his bitter cynicism, and before the cranky old man, was an eternal optimist, silently satisfied that the human race might- *might*- transcend to greater things.

So George, I'm dying to know- is there an afterlife? If you can provide me with some evidence, I know of a million bucks with my name on it :D
 
zaphod2016 said:
Also: if anyone could define "woo" for me, I would be very appreciative.
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Any time:

Skeptic Wiki definition:

Woo-woo (or sometimes, simply woo) is used within parts of the skeptical community in referring to

1. extraordinary beliefs for which it is felt there is insufficient extraordinary evidence, and
2. people who hold those beliefs.
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eng101.gif
 
BPSCG said:
I'm going to be the spoilsport here.

George Carlin was the original master of raging against the machine while using the machine to get rich.

He railed against big evil corporations.

But big evil corporations produced his recordings. Big evil corporations marketed his recordings. Big evil productions produced his TV specials. Big evil corporations owned the theaters where he performed.

He got rich by selling you his product, with the able assistance of big evil corporations that he tried to tell you were ripping you off.

If it weren't for big evil corporations that George Carlin pretended to hate, nobody would ever had heard of George Carlin.

And now he's getting a Mark Twain Prize. How ironic; if there was anyone who would have spotted the colossal hypocrisy, it would have been Mark Twain.

Yeah, he could be funny. His comparison of baseball and football was wonderful. But don't think for a minute that he really hated the big evil corporations that made him rich. That was just a stage persona.

You know what's funny? The Washington Post has a "comments" section at the end of its story about Carlin, and dozens of the comments are along the lines of, "We know you're in Heaven now, George" "He's getting his Mark Twain Prize from Mark Twain himself," "Have fun making God laugh, George" blah blah blah. Yeesh.
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Following your rationale would mean that no financially successful comedian would be allowed to criticise corporations, capitalism, marketing, advertising, exploitation in the labour market...etc..
Nor, I guess, would comedians be allowed to criticise microphones, lighting, stages, tv producers, recording technology, seats, cameras, auditoriums, or the chick who sells ice creams during the interval.

BPSCG world would be a pretty strange world. It might look, to some, like some kind of fascism.
It's a pity George isn't around to take the piss out of your wonky outlook on this. He'd do a much better job than I.
 
George Carlin is in heaven now.*

*Kurt Vonnegut used that joke at Isaac Asimov's memorial service. I hope you like it.
 
And now for the weather. It's 68 degreess at the airport, which isn't very useful because nobody lives at the airport.

I liked Carlin a lot when he and I were younger but in his later years he did seem to become a misanthrope and was hard to listen to at times. But on the whole I have to give his career a big thumbs up.
 
Fans of James Randi criticising someone for being a grumpy old man is pretty ironic.
 
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