GEORGE CARLIN: HATS OFF TO ONE OF COMEDY’S FOULEST MOUTH AND MOST RAZOR-SHARP INTELLECTS
George Carlin recently received the American Comedy Awards' Lifetime Achievement Award, for his long and glorious comedy career. Besides numerous stand-up performances, he's appeared many times on radio and TV/cable and has published collections of his jokes, Brain Droppings and Napalm & Silly Putty.
I don't agree with everything he says (including some of the things I quote below), but he is one of America's foremost social critics - and, unlike many self-styled social critics, he's darned funny too. He's earned his fame.
George Carlin ruthlessly attacks our social pretensions and ideals. His bemused attitude toward our society is best summed up in his preface (for Brain Droppings, one of his books): "I frankly don't give a f[ig] how it all turns out in this country - or anywhere else, for that matter. I think the human game was up a long time ago (when the high priests and traders took over), and now we're just playing out the string. And that is, of course, precisely what I find so amusing: the slow circling of the drain by a once promising species, and the sappy, ever-more-desperate belief in this country that there is actually some sort of 'American Dream,' which has merely been misplaced." And what does he hope for? "Don't confuse me with those who cling to hope....My motto: F[orget] Hope!"
George uses his mouth to emphasize his contempt for our social institutions and beliefs. Any visitor to his website, http://www.georgecarlin.com is offered a test: one is shown three successively nastier words (synonyms respectively for sexual intercourse, the female organs therefor and one who performs fellatio). After clicking each time to show one understands how common the concepts (and thus how inoffensive the words) really are, one is then shown the truly offensive word: religion. Only after click-agreeing to its true offensiveness does one enter his site. (Perhaps in deference to some people's feelings, his site includes a "Skip Intro" link at the very bottom of the front page: you can click it to bypass the above.)
His language has gotten him into trouble. For example, he is well known for his satire "Filthy Words" on Pacifica Radio, in which he listed the various words one cannot (well, could not) use on the airwaves. No euphemisms. No bracketed substitutes like I'm using. Just the words, one after the other. A man driving with his young son heard Carlin's performance on his car radio, and complained to the US Federal Communications Commission. The FCC, which regulates the broadcast media and has the power to license - or de-license - any radio station, eventually sent a written warning to the station that any further violations could result in serious consequences. Pacifica Radio fought the FCC all the way up the US Supreme Court, which in the 1978 landmark ruling FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (438 US 726) found that the First Amendment does not protect "patently offensive" language on the airwaves.
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