I was so busy trying to come up with intentionally lousy cop movie dialogue (for a fake movie trailer that's part of a graphic novel script I'm working on) that I didn't learn about the following sad news until late at night."George Carlin Dead at 71."
The first thing I thought to myself after reading the news were seven certain words.
I'm more of a fan of Carlin's later, angrier albums like You Are All Diseased and Complaints and Grievances than the breakthrough routines from his earlier hippie period. Some longtime Carlin fans find his later period to be one-note or problematic, but several of my personal favorite Carlin routines, like the anti-House of Blues rant, emerged from this later era ("If white people are gonna burn down black churches, then black people oughta burn down the House of Blues"). (I hate to admit it, but prior to his '90s and '00s stand-up albums, my first exposure to Carlin was his thankless role as
As a tribute to this brilliant comedian, all Morning Becomes Dyspeptic episodes that feature excerpts from Carlin's albums will be streamed all week long (except on Friday, for complicated reasons that have to do with the MBD announcer's prerecorded outro on Friday editions). MBD airs every weekday at 1am and 8am on the Fistful of Soundtracks channel.
And unlike my old college radio show where I played excerpts from my favorite comedy albums in between hip-hop breaks--but the station's daytime airplay rules required me to edit out all the comics' profanity--all of Carlin's routines during MBD are uncensored. Just as Carlin would have wanted.
A very fitting tribute. I will certainly tune in this week.
ReplyDeleteI think almost all my bloggy friends have name-checked Carlin in the last 24 hours or so. He was one of those entertainers that made you feel like a with-it, cool cat when you listened to him and quoted him way back in junior high, and 30 years later, he was still just as funny and relevant. That's rare. He'll be missed.