Comedians Don’t Want to Die
It was a lame, morose Sunday on June 22nd. I felt a dank, lingering must in my room (probably the fucking dust monster, immortal and immune to cleaning agents and vacuums) but also over my spirit. The previous week was the end of my planned honeymoon with joblessness, and I was awaiting word from a company in India that I applied to. The daylight hours waned and, in front of the amphetamine-like YouTube, I drifted off into a pointless sleep.
The next morning, I decided to attack the day and rise early, make a good breakfast, drink some coffee, and ferociously pursue a new job. Like your typical yuppie go-getter, I turned on CNN Headline News to watch Robin Meade, the gorgeous morning anchor to see what political bullshit or celebrity updates she had for me. Instead, I was leveled like a small child with his back turned to the raging surf. George Carlin had died unexpectedly the day before, and instantly I knew what that feeling had been on Sunday. It was my subconscious preparing me for the devastating loss.
Carlin wasn’t just the man who gave us the iconic routine “Seven Dirty Words you Can’t Say on Television” (seen below) and split from his silly, absurdist humor that made him accessible to crowds outside his counterculture following. He was a critical thinker, now a species loathed by the dominant forces in politics, religion, and sappy American television and media. Leave it to L. Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center to sum up how some people will remember the legacy of Carlin.
In the sad final analysis, Carlin betrayed the promise of the hippie counterculture, that the establishment would be wiped away, and only love and peace would remain. He joked that inside every cynic is a disappointed idealist. But hunting for idealism in Carlin’s late work would be a search for a blade of hay in a large mountain of needles. In the end, George Carlin was a comedic genius who lost his sense of humor.
Well, I guess the concept of De mortuis nil nisi bonum is not part of his “research.” I won’t give him any more attention (or links) than he needs because, well such a high-ranking media figure gets his hateful eulogy published on Yahoo. Perhaps the smattering of respect for one third of the holy trinity (Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor) of stand-up comics by the media led Bozell to his conclusion.
I’ll admit, George did seem to be a hunched, scraggly cynic in the end of his performing days, but the man was hard at work tearing at the social fabric until the moment of his death. In today’s smarmy, self-obsessed, glitter-covered, plastic surgery, spoiled-bitches-televised-birthday-parties culture, the counterculture man simply has no choice.
Perhaps that’s what led our fallen comic hero to his bit about America “circling the drain” in one of his final standup tours. I, for one, am glad to have been circling the drain along with you, Mr. Carlin, and your biting wit and brutal honesty might not be tacky and shallow enough for someone like Bozell, but it was a bright spot for myself and many others in this cesspool of culture we call America.
I will never forget you. This blog exists because of you, and I will continue my quest as though you’re reading over my shoulder the whole time. In the ironic circumstance that George Carlin may have headed to some afterlife of which he so scathingly and masterfully poked fun, I will leave you with the man, on death, in his own brilliant words.
Comedians don’t wanna die. It’s only a metaphor, but it’s so true of all of us. We don’t wanna die out there. I don’t wanna die. Jeez, I was dyin out there. It was death out there. It was like a morgue. Course, if the comedian doesn’t die, ya know, if he succeeds…..if makes you laugh, he can say I killed em. So, it’s either me or you, you know? Just like on the freeway. Dying is one of the few fair things in life. Everybody catches it once.
Carlin for you:
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