We will miss George Carlin...

[MUff1N]

When I first heard his album (vinyl records) I thought he was hallarious...The world has lost a great comedian!

LOS ANGELES - Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. Some People Are Stupid. Stuff. People I Can Do Without.


George Carlin, who died Sunday at 71, leaves behind not only a series of memorable routines, but a legal legacy: His most celebrated monologue, a frantic, informed riff on those infamous seven words, led to a Supreme Court decision on broadcasting offensive language.

The counterculture hero's jokes also targeted things such as misplaced shame, religious hypocrisy and linguistic quirks — why, he once asked, do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?

Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died of heart failure later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.

"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.

The actor Ben Stiller called Carlin "a hugely influential force in stand-up comedy. He had an amazing mind, and his humor was brave, and always challenging us to look at ourselves and question our belief systems, while being incredibly entertaining. He was one of the greats."

Carlin constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the "Seven Words" — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV to this day.

When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance.

The words were later played on a New York radio station, resulting in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening.

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.

Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the "Saturday Night Live" debut in 1975 — noting on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long" — and appearing some 130 times on "The Tonight Show."

He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a few TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" in 1989 — a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (sometimes hitting all points in one stroke).

"Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?" he once mused. "Are they afraid someone will clean them?"

In one of his most famous routines, Carlin railed against euphemisms he said have become so widespread that no one can simply "die."

"'Older' sounds a little better than 'old,' doesn't it?," he said. "Sounds like it might even last a little longer. ... I'm getting old. And it's OK. Because thanks to our fear of death in this country I won't have to die — I'll 'pass away.' Or I'll 'expire,' like a magazine subscription. If it happens in the hospital they'll call it a 'terminal episode.' The insurance company will refer to it as 'negative patient care outcome.' And if it's the result of malpractice they'll say it was a 'therapeutic misadventure.'"

Carlin won four Grammy Awards for best spoken comedy album and was nominated for five Emmys. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which will be presented Nov. 10 in Washington and broadcast on PBS.

"Nobody was funnier than George Carlin," said Judd Apatow, director of recent hit comedies such as "Knocked Up" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." "I spent half my childhood in my room listening to his records experiencing pure joy. And he was as kind as he was funny."

Carlin started his career on the traditional nightclub circuit in a coat and tie, pairing with Burns to spoof TV game shows, news and movies. Perhaps in spite of the outlaw soul, "George was fairly conservative when I met him," said Burns, describing himself as the more left-leaning of the two. It was a degree of separation that would reverse when they came upon Lenny Bruce, the original shock comic, in the 1960s.

"We were working in Chicago, and we went to see Lenny, and we were both blown away," Burns said, recalling the moment as the beginning of the end for their collaboration (though not their close friendship). "It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."

That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years.

"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition," Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. "There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."

Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. According to his official Web site, which is often tongue-in-cheek, he received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments.

While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.

"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.

From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Fort Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs, including carnival organist and marketing director for a peanut brittle.

In 1960, he left with $300 and Burns, a Texas radio buddy, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. His first break came just months later when the duo appeared on Jack Paar's "Tonight Show."

Carlin said he hoped to emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of the times.

It didn't work for him, and the pair broke up by 1962.

"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."

Eventually Carlin ditched the buttoned-up look for his trademark beard, ponytail and all-black attire.

But even with his decidedly adult-comedy bent, Carlin never lost his childlike sense of mischief, even voicing kid-friendly projects like episodes of the TV show "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" and the spacey Volkswagen bus Fillmore in the 2006 Pixar hit "Cars."

Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. Survivors include his wife Sally Wade, his daughter, Kelly Carlin McCall, and his brother, Patrick Carlin.

[PorPorMe]

I don't know weather it's me or if it's something in the water, but it seems the famous are dying bye the numbers lately. I can't say I'll acually miss George Carlin. He was a good comedean and it's sad when any one passes, but I am honest with myself "sometimes," I can't miss someone I never met. I just don't. Seems rather strange to me. I don't know, but I think, that a lot of people think they 'should' feel something and thats what they choose and mabye I don't know what I'm talking about. There is a lot of that going around.

[Daniel ~]

I was looking foward to his new work...so yeah I'll miss him...he brought me joy on many occasions, I hope that annoys him....":O}

[PorPorMe]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

I was looking foward to his new work...so yeah I'll miss him...he brought me joy on many occasions, I hope that annoys him....":O}

That is the dycodomy isn't it? He would find it annoying and that would amuse him, and that would annoy him! Here's to you George

[Samuknow]

He has given me many laughs. And yes I do know those seven words

[Azriel]

I'm reminded a story of the night Lenny Bruce was arrested.

Lenny Bruce, for those who don't know of him was the last man to go to jail in the US for using words that were "offensive" during a non-public performance.

When Lenny Bruce was hauled off to jail, a young man in the audience, was rather verbal in his protest of what was happening. When he was asked to give the police his ID, he refused, saying "I don't believe in ID". He was arrested and taken to jail as well. He was happy to go. He only made a fuss because he wanted to talk to Lenny Bruce. He got his chance on the ride, and in the cell that night. His name was George Carlin.

Edit to add: **** **** piss **** ********** mother****er and tits.

[Daniel ~]

I remember Lenny's troubles very well. Never heard that story. Thanks.

He was eleven years my senior. Usually that's enough to create distance and and a divide. But rather than separate us in our world views, George saw the times with great clarity and help my generation to put them into terms we could understand.

If we do not master them, words can control us.

George liberated the dictionary and gave us back an expressive language that would help us to define my generation's Bull ****. Then helped the next after me understand what we were raging about.

It is really hard to think of him as at peace, as being still. He mind was ever in motion...his heart always engaged...

[cloasters]

In this day and age, laughter isn't easy. Thank you for making me laugh my butt off George! We will miss you.

[Samuknow]

I have had many a skit of his running through my head after reading this. I tried never to miss him if he was on a show or HBO or something. He looked at the obvious in a not so obvious way.