I caught a recent (not sure HOW recent) HBO special on Carlin, and I couldn’t believe how far apart the performance was from the guy’s rep. Hey, I know he’s supposed to be a witty commentator on modern America, but from where I sat, it looked like he just harangued the audience ad nauseum for an hour-plus.
And it really wasn’t funny. Occasionally he would draw some laughs from the crowd, but nothing too huge, and I think even what he got was a bit of a favor.
Objectively speaking, his observations were correct, and more amusing than a speech on the same material delivered by my high school principal, but that’s about it. After a while I actually found him annoying.
I could understand if he used his humor to tear up the stupidity of the culture. But maybe he feels it’s gone past the point where it can be made fun of. In other words, he appears to be taking it seriously. Fine, go ahead, George, but for fuck’s sake don’t sell it as comedy!!!
Was it “Life is Worth Losing”? That was his most recent and somewhere in it he talks about masturbating while choking yourself. If that is the one you saw then I agree with you. It was mostly worthless except for the masturbation part, in which Carlin does what he does best; give an amusingly vivid description of a certain (usually dreadful) event.
My favorite George Carlin special is “You Are All Diseased” in which he explains exactly why religion is bullshit.
It does not matter much that “Life is Worth Losing” sucked so much, Carlin is usually hit or miss with the HBO specials. He writes so much new stuff that it would be really hard for one person to find him funny all the time.
I agree, for what it’s worth. Carlin has turned bitter, and in so doing has lost his edge. Now he’s just the old coot on the corner, howling about the Aliens and applesauce. Sad, really. He used to actually mean something.
What is your guess at why he is bitter?
I have a WAG. He always came across as a social liberal but a Republican at heart. I think he might be so disgusted at where the party has headed with all the Religious Right Wingers, that this made him bitter. I know he come across as a hawk, my politics have always seemed similar to his. It seems like he has had a good life, so from the way he seems to care about America, I think he might be bitter about where we have gone. Ah, probably a poor WAG.
It’s like the older he gets, the more frustrated he gets with the things that are “wrong” with life. He used to laugh at them, and make us laugh too, but it’s almos like since those things didn’t change, and are still wrong, has made him frustrated and bitter.
I’ve been following him for almost 40 years and the thought of him being a Republican at heart has never entered my head. A hawk? Are you kidding me?
As to the OP: you’re just now noticing? Carlin stopped being funny at least a decade ago. At least. He wasn’t funny at the time of The George Carlin Show (either on the show or off) and that was in 1994.
Old comedians seemingly can’t be angry, because it just comes across as sour and mean. Imagine an old Lenny Bruce as opposed to an old George Burns. Groucho Marx had a reputation for insulting people, so people liked getting insulted by him but even so he had the smarts to play his formal act as nostalgia and leave his nasty comments for private groups.
I can’t think of a truly old angry comic who’s ever been successful. Most have almost fortunately died when young or middle-aged. The rest fade into oblivion as their audiences abandon them. Carlin still has an audience, though it can only be a fraction of what it once was. I don’t think he can go on much longer, though.
The new one wasn’t great, which pains me because I was there when it was recorded. But despite the bitterness I don’t think you can throw out all of his recent work. I always manage to laugh hard at at least a few things in each of his specials. You Are All Diseased is solid, the [del]Ten[/del] Two Commandments bit from Complaints and Grievances is very good, and there were a lot of quality one-liners in that one. (Like “Here’s another group of mutants with missing chromosomes who ought to be thrown screaming from a helicopter: Gun enthusiasts.”)
What Exit?… sorry, but you’re projecting. You’re talking about the guy who said "Once you leave the womb, conservatives don’t care about you until you reach military age. Then you’re just what they’re looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. " Like most comedians, he’ll ridicule any effort to protect people and any new trends in society - they say comedy is conservative - but he’s not an actual conservative.
I searched through about three different version of George Carlin’s discography before I did a Web search and found that this means “pulled it out of my ass.” If Carlin were here, I’m sure he’d suggest that we all try talking in English.
Well, he started his career as a recently-discharged army vet making fun of hippies (“The Hippy Dippy Weatherman”). And while his doping was legendary, well, so was PJ O’Rourke’s. There were, in fact, comics in the 60s advocating revolution, redistribution of wealth, the whole Communist Party line, and Carlin was never one of them.
I find him to be an arrogant little turd. He was funny in the 1970s, but now there’s an anger to his routine that I really find uncomfortable to watch.
Life is Worth Losing was just amazingly unfunny. If you didn’t know he was a comedian, you might not even realize he was trying to be funny for a lot of it.
But despite the bitterness I don’t think you can throw out all of his recent work. I always manage to laugh hard at at least a few things in each of his specials. You Are All Diseased is solid, the [del]Ten[/del] Two Commandments bit from Complaints and Grievances is very good, and there were a lot of quality one-liners in that one. (Like “Here’s another group of mutants with missing chromosomes who ought to be thrown screaming from a helicopter: Gun enthusiasts.”)