Several years ago he received an award of some sort- I honestly can’t remember what- and his acceptance speech was basically a long eulogy of his wife. He remained dry eyed but few others did; he was about the last person you’d ever expect to become extremely sentimental in a speech.
Anyway, he’s one of those who if he’d never done a single concert in the last 30 years could still rest on his laurels. He was to comedy what the Beatles were to music in terms of the influence he had on those who came afterwards.
God, he sucked in his later years. It was painful, almost zen in it’s antithesis to the comic genius he was.
Good thing everything he did leading up to that was brilliant.
Godspeed, motherfucker(and I say that knowing how he’d appreciate the irony).
I was so happy when I got home 10 minutes ago from my last exam for semester and I thought, I’ll see what the SDMB has to say while I boil the kettle, that’ll be fun…
:eek: :mad:
George, don’t forget to tell the Man Upstairs what you think of His ten commandments: a bunch of MARKETING BULLSHIT aimed at CONTROLLING PRIMITIVE PEOPLE!
Scientists in Switzerland announced today that they can make mice fart by holding them upside down and tapping them gently on the stomach with a pencil.
In other news, a man who was shot in the chest 9 times yesterday and refused treatment, died today from 9 shots in the chest.
Tonight’s forecast - dark, giving way to widely scattered light by morning.
And in a partial score from the Coast, San Francisco 3.
Good-bye George. In honor of your memory, I’ll just say shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits.
I memorized so many routines of his growing up - he was the man (not the only man, but I didn’t get to see Richard Pryor Live in Concert till a few years later).
I will miss you George - thank you for making me laugh; and think.
George was right that it’s entertaining when a whole bunch of people die at once. But when one person you like dies, it sucks.
I’ve never gotten all the way to his famous “Fuck hope” philosophy. I’ve still got enough naivete to hope that we’re not a once-promising species now circling the drain. But if there is meaning to all this shit, and some kind of God, and an afterlife, both George and I are going to be some suprised motherfuckers.
I was a sucker for a Carlin concert. Saw him two months ago.
It’s one thing to be the best at what you do; it’s another to be the best at being an original at what you do. He came along at the right time and did it the best.
He hosted the first Saturday Night Live.
In his book Braindroppings, Carlin wrote he hoped the worst crime of the 21st century would happened early so he could see it. He got his wish on 9/11.
As Imus (who knew them both) said this morning: Russert didn’t realize he was TIM RUSSERT, and Carlin didn’t realize he was GEORGE CARLIN.
Thanks for the laughs George.
He was in show business for fifty years, and married to the same woman for 37 years until her death from cancer in 1997. I hope he has been reunited with Brenda.
He never did get the answer to the most profound question I ever heard at 12: Why is it O.K. to say I pricked my finger on TV but not the other way around?
When I was a young teen and babysitting my cousin’s daughter, I listened to his George Carlin albums get off my lawn! over and over and over again.
If my mother knew I was listening to such filth, I would have never been able to babysit for my cousin ( her nephew) again. I would have babysat for free just for those few hours of listening to something so funny and forbidden.
To say that George Carlin had a profound effect on my teen years and humor would be an understatement.
Thanks, George!
It seems really inappropriate to cry at the death of a great comedian, but I have to admit I’m having trouble holding it together here. I’ve been a big fan since I was about 14 and I can’t imagine how many times I’ve watched, rewatched and cracked up at his HBO specials. I wasn’t around for “Seven Words” when it was new, but I think of the [del]Ten[/del] Two Commandments as the masterpiece of his later period. But he could get mad about almost anything and just slay me, particularly when he talked about what he wanted to do to people who pissed him off - like the description of an environmentally conscious yuppie as “Another person who needs to be disembowled with a wooden cooking spoon and left bleeding in the moonlight.”
His most bitter stuff was too bitter even for me, which is saying something, but no standup ever made me laugh louder, longer, longer or more often. Carlin is a comedic hero to me and I’ll miss him, but I also can’t be very miserable while I’m thinking of all these great bits. Joe bless you all.
Although some of his later work was a bit … weary, I suppose – his earlier observations on the use of language and words were among a series of major epiphanies for my younger self. And funny as fuck, too. Glad I got to see him live, sad to see him go.
I’m aware some stare
at my hair;
In fact to be fair,
some really despair of my hair.
But I don’t care.
'Cause they’re not aware-
Nor are they debonair-
In fact, they’re just square.
They see hair down to there
Say “Beware!”
And go off on a tear.
I say, no fair.
A head that’s bare is really nowhere.
So be like a bear. Be fair with your hair.
Show it you care: wear it to there,
Or to there, or to there if you dare!
My wife bought some hair at a fair
To use as a spare.
Did I care?
No contrare.
Spare hair is fair.
In fact, hair can be rare.
Fred Astaire got no hair,
Nor does a chair,
No a chocolate eclair.
And where is the hair on a pear?
Nowhere, mon frere.
And now that I’ve shared
This affair of the hair
I think I’ll repair to my lair
And use Nair.
(Do you care?)
I am too. This was so unexpected. One, I never realized how old he was, and two, if I had, I’d still have thought he had twenty good years ahead. This has hit me harder than any celebrity death so far.
The football/baseball comparison was always one of my favorites.
