RIP George Carlin

What a bad weekend: first Scott Kalitta (sigh...that's not the way to "go out with a bang"), then Carlin. A friend turned me onto George around 1971 (also discovered Robert Klein around the same time). Ribald wit laced with a stinging conscience, I'd say he rarely missed the mark. He entertained us, but was also warning us about tripping over our own hubris. following, in his own way, Finley Peter Dunne's charge to "comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable." That's the harder part to take in, sometimes. In some of his more recent bits/rants, he reminds me of the opening lines of a favorite Elvis Costello song:

One day you're going to have to face
A deep dark truthful mirror
And it's going to tell you things
That I still love you too much to say

And, he's said these things for quite some time, perhaps more forcefully in the last few years of his life than some might have liked. But I grokked his message to the end. To me, he truly epitomized the too-often-meaningless phrase "keepin' it real."


- Barrett
 
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jan normandale said:
dmr; LaL, I was a fan however I'm not in the deep end of the pool. However I wish I was right now!

Please either tell us or shoot me ;- )
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Since I like you too much to shoot you, Jan (well, maybe a little snapshot...):

Unless my memory's fading faster than I'm willing to admit, dmr's referring to a DJ bit Carlin did, thought I forget if was on "Class Clown" or "Occupation: Foole." You really hage to hear it to "get it." One way or the other, I'm confident she'll set me/us straight on this. 🙂


- Barrett
 
jan normandale said:
Please either tell us or shoot me ;- )
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It was a parody of a song, secondary to the skit, actually, on his very first Willie West and Wonderful WINO radio recording.

(As you know, Willie West was fired and replaced by Scott Lame in the early 70s.) 🙂

ObTrivia: What two places on the dial did Wonderful WINO occur?
 
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