Dang! Just checked the news before turning in for the night and it says George Carlin died. Well he was 71, had a long and amazing career at least, but he was still funny. This makes me very sad. He had so many funny bits that made me laugh that I don't even know where to begin. His last HBO special was funny, so he still had "it." I guess I first remember him when he would go on Saturday Night Live.
One classic was on the differences between baseball and football. In a very serious military sounding voice he would say something like "Football is a battle that lasts exactly sixty minutes. Rigidly divided into four fifteen minute quarters. It will end even if we have to go to sudden death." Then in a cheerful hippie voice he'd say "In baseball we don't know when the game will end. Hey, we might even play extra innings!" "Football has a two minute warning. Baseball has the seventh inning stretch. With a sing along!"
Some of his funniest routines can't be reproduced here because they were full of dirty words. Seven of them, often many more. One of the funniest routines of all time was when he went on about the many uses of the four letter word beginning with S. Or his bit on oxymorons. JUMBO .... shrimp. That stuff is still funny. He had a lot of great humor about language, which is just about my favorite type of comedy.
Later in life he turned his humor on society with some hilarious and biting social commentary.
The only book by a comedian I ever bought was his
Brain Droppings. I just pulled it off the shelf and it's comedy gold! Opening to a random page:
"Here's something I can do without: People ahead of me on the supermarket line who are paying for an inexpensive item by credit card or personal check. People! Take my word for this: Tic Tacs is not a major purchase. And, I get just as discouraged when a guy who's buying a simple jar of spaghetti sauce tries to pay with a letter of credit from the Bank of Lichtenstein. Folks, carry some bleepin' money around, will ya? It comes in handy! No one should be borrowing money from a bank at 18 percent interest to buy a loaf of bread."
Oh man, he has his football & baseball routine in here. Now I'm gonna be up all night. I'll miss you George.
