Still reverberating from the stunning loss of the beloved Tim Russert along comes Mr. Death to twist the knife of unanticipated loss and drown us once again in grief.
George Carlin is in the rarefied pantheon of the few, too few, truly great stand-up comedians. Along with Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor, George Carlin embodied the Swiftian, Twainish culturally astute rapier wit and wisdom that every era needs. The love of language the horror, ecstasy and sublime ridiculousness of human behavior along with the sensibility to synthesize psychology and sociology into the unique poetry of joke-telling is the very recipe for comic greatness.
And now immortality...
Good night sweet Prince.
Richard Belzer - June 23, 2008, Huffington Post
George Carlin is in the rarefied pantheon of the few, too few, truly great stand-up comedians. Along with Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor, George Carlin embodied the Swiftian, Twainish culturally astute rapier wit and wisdom that every era needs. The love of language the horror, ecstasy and sublime ridiculousness of human behavior along with the sensibility to synthesize psychology and sociology into the unique poetry of joke-telling is the very recipe for comic greatness.
And now immortality...
Good night sweet Prince.
Richard Belzer - June 23, 2008, Huffington Post
My Favorite Comments:
"What Carlin had in common with the pantheon Richard Belzer names is that he was as much (or perhaps more) a cultural observer than a comedian. He made people laugh but he didn't really tell jokes in the classic sense. He seldom if ever tried to act silly for cheap laughs. Instead he'd grab hold of some aspect of our culture or of life and strip it down to the bare bones of its absurdity. He'd make me see things I'd always passed over or never thought about in quite that weird way, and make me wonder why I'd never seen it that way. And even when he did push the silly envelope, his riffs would stay in my mind sometimes for weeks, like tunes I couldn't get rid of.
"What Carlin had in common with the pantheon Richard Belzer names is that he was as much (or perhaps more) a cultural observer than a comedian. He made people laugh but he didn't really tell jokes in the classic sense. He seldom if ever tried to act silly for cheap laughs. Instead he'd grab hold of some aspect of our culture or of life and strip it down to the bare bones of its absurdity. He'd make me see things I'd always passed over or never thought about in quite that weird way, and make me wonder why I'd never seen it that way. And even when he did push the silly envelope, his riffs would stay in my mind sometimes for weeks, like tunes I couldn't get rid of.
The first time I heard where is the blue food? I must have spent days trying to think of a natural food that was actually anything near blue. Why my mind insisted on working this absurd problem I don't know, but like so much else he said, the idea was so out there that it just got inside me. I had to know whether this tweaked perception was really true, so I could write him and prove he was wrong... How many other human beings other than Carlin would actually have been curious and insistent enough to work this out?" - starboymikey
"Well said Belz. Saw you on "Morning Joe" when your dog barfed on Mika and the chaos it created was almost a perfect way to pay tribute to Carlin. You're reaction when they informed you that SNL was going to air the first time he hosted SNL this weekend was raw and real. Belz, you are also a comic's comic and I'm glad you're out there talking so fondly about the iconic Carlin." -bazokbros
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Katie's Comment:
I was shocked to my inner bones when I read that one of my big brothers of comedy was gone - I have not yet recovered...Still, I will not give up eccentric observationism, nor will I give in to culturally purposeless whims. Thank you, George for clearing the path so the different drummer could follow your example. You were a rare bird, but thankfully, the sacred fool will never be exterminated.
(So there, Orkin Man - go play Old Maid with the Maytag repair guy.)
The foolish will always confound the automated wise.
- Kid Sister to a Comedian
I Corinthians 1:27
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