George Carlin

Like many people my age, I came into contact with George Carlin through his HBO specials. Lucky enough to grow up with outspoken family and friends, it was still a new experience to hear someone so honest about how he saw life, and be able to articulate that worldview not only with such humor, but such intellect. George Carlin was a comedian, make no mistake, but as he progressed through his career, he used that comedy more and more as a medium for something far less transitory as a moment’s laugh. He tried to enlighten his audience through his sharp social criticism, and unyielding determination to stand back from the many ideas and beliefs the rest of us blindly cherish, and honestly evaluate them and their effect on the human condition.

As we reflect on George’s brilliant career, his famous “Seven Words You Can’t Say on TV” is often cited as the pinnacle of his body of work. Though this comedy routine, and its judicial detour, was important milestone in Carlin’s career and historic in the annals of the free speech movement, it almost casts George as too simply a comedian bartering in the shock of loaded words. He was so very much more than that. He pursued language with the insightful glee of a child or court jester, excused from the artificial bounds of decorum; deconstructing its parts to examine each dismantled piece astutely for substance and humor like his contemporary in literature Kurt Vonnegut, or the legendary Mark Twain. Summing up Carlin’s career with just those seven words is a travesty, and connotes the level of shallow thinking that George found so amusing in us.

I’m not sure there will ever be another comedian like George Carlin. I’m not sure the world we live in today could easily incubate such a razor-sharp social critic able to use wit so deftly to defy mainstream culture. I hope so. I hope we will have more George Carlins, who refuse to edit their thoughts through a society-engendered filter for mass approval. Men and women who refuse to rein in their reach to make their thoughts more palatable to the masses. A person who refuses to speak less to go to the people, and instead speaks more to bring the people to them.

George Carlin made us laugh; but more importantly helped to make us think a little more. His sardonic wit knew no bounds, and through all his coarseness, sometimes brutal sarcasm, and occasional goofy face, there was always warmth conveyed to his audience that, at its best, made you feel like you were in a wonderful late night conversation with friends or family around a kitchen table where, through fatigue or intimacy, talk of deeper subjects could be conducted freely and unencumbered.

The world is a quieter place now.