Bye Bye, George Carlin

By April Fleming

Monday, June 23, 2008

As I'm sure you have heard, George Carlin died of heart failure yesterday in California. Note to reapers: We're at admired cultural icon death quota for at least a few months. Hold off on Newman, and if you come for Jon Stewart or Willie Nelson or something, we'll uh... well nothing, just please don't. If you're just itching to take just something, we've been offering Fred Phelps and Rush Limbaugh for years - help yourself to them instead.

From the Nation comes my favorite tribute so far (of course excepting my friend Megan's comment that Carlin was "The only dude with a ponytail I would have banged."). Among other good Carlin wisdom, the article includes Carlin's philosophy on politicians: "Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: "The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope."

He's likely the most famous grump of his generation, and he absolutley paved the way for Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks and all of the Doug Stanhopes, Bill Mahers and Lewis Blacks after him. In all likelihood, he was probably cool with checking out now rather than later. He wasn't the type to want to be cared after, and he went out working.

Here's a clip from his most recent HBO special in which he talks about death - he wasn't scared:

And of course, his most famous bit:

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Posted by smerdyakov (anonymous) on June 23, 2008 at 12:49 p.m. (Suggest removal)

NK on the death streak tip. If Moyers turns up dead any time before the election, I'm going to guess Cheney and Co. got the ricin hookup from Putin.

Vince's recent blog ( http://www.lawrence.com/blogs/fresh_gree... ) linked to a great clip on Carlin's "Environmentalist" philosophy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A...

Bye Bye, George Carlin

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