The first time I ever broke up with a girl, it was because of George Carlin.
She was a couple of years younger than me, and we had very little in common. Different taste in music (she was a U2 fan; looking back, her taste was better than mine), different tastes in TV, different tastes in friends. We both liked to make out, but that was pretty much the breadth of our recreational intersection.
And so one night, we're at a dance at the high school, talking with a bunch of my friends and our dates, and not really connecting, as always. We start talking about comedians. Eddie Murphy's Delirious was really big at the time, and she mentioned it. I mentioned how much I loved George Carlin; when I'd had a paper route a few years before, I played a cassette of A Place for My Stuff over and over again until long past I had the thing memorized. And she said,
"Who's George Carlin?"
You can't break up with someone on the spot at a big school dance. It's just rude. But those three words were like the anti-Thunderbolt: a clear sign reading You Are Not Compatible.
A week later, we were through.
George Carlin is immensely important to me; never mind that he was funny as hell, there was a weight, an importance to his words that few comedians achieve.
Because he chose his words carefully. He loved his words. Words were one of his chief sources of humor. He settled for nothing less than exactness, and lampooned the vague and the wishy-washy. Euphemisms were dicti non grata.
His other target was authority. He'd skewer the powerful with moral outrage or impish glee, usually by turning their own jargon against them in a form of linguistic judo. It usually wasn't anyone specific he was going after; more often, he was challenging the very idea of authority. He could be blisteringly funny, or blisteringly angry. His humor wasn't always comfortable. There was a knife-twist, an unkind mirror. I'm tempted to say that if Joseph Heller did stand-up, it would sound like he'd cribbed from Carlin. But the fact is there was no one like Carlin, and now there is no one like Carlin.
But I'd bet that there are some people who are better, smarter and more independent than they would have been without him.
Rest in peace, George.
Rob
Monday, June 23, 2008
How to Wave Goodbye Without Moving Your Arms
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1 comment:
I mourn.
On Monday, NPR played excerpts from two old Carlin interviews. They addressed both the things you mention, Rob: his attitude towards authority (contempt? rebellion? something more subtle and complex, I believe) and his love of words.
Given those two characteristics, and his incisive intelligence in the ways he brought them to his comedy,is there really any way I wouldn't have connected with him?
Carlin understood, and was able to express, the duality of language's power. He knew that "language is infinitely important" and "it's just a word" are both equally true at the same time. Some people just never get this; perhaps they're not capable of it; I suspect a great many of the people who "got" Carlin's humor also "got" this insight at the same time, even if they never understood or were even aware that they did.
I know my own feelings about so-called obscenity (or profanity, or whatever we're calling "bad words" these days) have an evolution that probably goes back to George Carlin as a substantial influence. From fuck to nigger to faggot, I know that words have power. I know also that it's power we give them. Being afraid to actually use the word itself in any context (fearfully substituting "N-word" or "F-word") only gives them more power. These words don't have power over us unless we permit it; it can be our choice to have power over them.
Carlin spoke with similar intimacy to my feelings about authority. My Mom used to recount the way I interrogated her when I didn't want to go to school.
"But you have to go to school."
Why?
"Everybody has to."
Why?
"The State requires that you go to school."
Who's The State?
This whole authority thing was already rubbing me the wrong way before I even began first grade. Years later -- middle school, probably -- I discovered that there was a comedian out there who knew exactly how I felt and said, "Yeah, kid, that's cool." I think I probably connected with Carlin on that level first, because I know it was a while before I heard him in all his uncensored glory.
When Carlin's humor got angry, he was usually venting what I felt; sometimes his was the first clear expression of something I'd long felt but couldn't get a grip on. Yes, his humor sometimes attacked; his humor could be outraged, contemptuous, challenging and merciless; it was never cruel. He never just took aim at his targets -- he aimed for the truth beyond them, and they just got in the way.
George Carlin took comedy seriously, in all the best ways. He will be missed.
I have a sudden impulse to check the refrigerator for meat-cake.
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