The World According To Carl

My favorite comedian of all time, George Carlin, passed away Sunday evening due to heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital on Sunday. He was 71. He had a long history of heart problems, drug usage, and other health-related issues. He is known for his edgy, provocative material with the most famous (or infamous depending upon whom you are asking) bit being “Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say On Television.”

My personal introduction to George Carlin as a standup comedian was when my parents allow me to stay up late one night when I was a child and I saw him on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson where he performed his “Al Sleet: Hippy, Dippy Weatherman” routine which had me laughing so hard that my sides hurt when my parents put me to bed.

Several days later, my maternal grandparents drove down from Memphis to visit for a weekend and they took me to the local five-and-dime store to pick out a goodie for making the honor roll (or something like that — I can’t recall clearly). I picked out George Carlin’s “Class Clown” album and upon returning home, I took it into my bedroom to play it on my little, all-plastic GE kiddie record player. I knew he was funny and I wanted everyone to listen as well. My Grandmother was the only one to take me up on the offer. I started playing the album which started off innocently enough but only a few minutes (or perhaps moments) Carlin started using profanity which I nor my Grandmother expected. And when you’re eight years old and sitting in front of your Grandmother listening to a record, having profanity coming from the record that you picked out is not only embarassing, but kinda scary as well because you immediately think you’re about to get a spanking. Fortunately, she calmly took the needle off the record, put the album in the sleeve and told me that she was taking the album back and allowing me to pick out something “more appropriate.” I apologized profusely (or at least as profusely as an eight-year-old can). When they left, we figured it ended up in a trashcan somewhere between Cleveland, Missisippi and Memphis, Tennesee. Although I was horrified at the moment it happened, it soon became a funny story my parents told their friends. And it remains that way to this day with them.

Several years later, I heard a cleverly censored version of Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say On Television” aired on the Dr. Demento Show on radio. Instead of the normal bleeps you would hear over the profanity, Dr. Demento used the most ridiculous sound effects available. Since everyone pretty much knew the words, the outrageous sound effects used to cover the profanity made the routine even funnier in its absurdity.

Although I differred from Carlin on many issues including politics and Christianity, I always appreciated and enjoyed his humor. He will be missed and my condolences go out to his family and friends.

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson’s Website, Rosemary’s Thoughts, The Random Yak, Right Truth, Mac’s Opinion, Phastidio.net, Cao’s Blog, Democrat=Socialist, Conservative Cat, third world county, DragonLady’s World, The Pink Flamingo, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, A Newt One, and Stageleft. Also, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 6:10 pm and is filed under General, LinkFests. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.