George Carlin expires ‘like a magazine subscription’

June 24, 2008

George CarlinGeorge, you paved the way for some of my favourite socially and politically charged comedians. You showed me just how versatile a word can be. And, you gave substance to TheHumanaught.com’s #1 visited post.

“Older” sounds a little better than “old,” doesn’t it? Sounds like it might even last a little longer … I’m getting old. And it’s OK. Because thanks to our fear of death in this country I won’t have to die — I’ll ‘pass away.’ Or I’ll ‘expire,’ like a magazine subscription. If it happens in the hospital they’ll call it a ‘terminal episode.’ The insurance company will refer to it as ‘negative patient care outcome.’ And if it’s the result of malpractice they’ll say it was a ‘therapeutic misadventure.’

You were a comedic genius and legend. Whatever it’s called, You will be missed.

Some of the greats

Usage of the Word Fuck

Filthy Words (Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television)


this isn’t the original bit, but I don’t know if it was captured on video – YouTube doesn’t seem to think so.

Religion is Bullshit

4 Responses

  1. His shit is fucking awesome! Genius! Better than Billy Collony, I reckon. Rest in peace, George. Hope God is forgetful enough to treat you well up (or down?) there…

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  2. He was everything the books claimed Lenny Bruce was supposed to be. It is ironic because Bruce was Carlin’s mentor. I suppose it’s like Tom Landry compared to some of his football (American) teams. Landry might have sucked on the field, but he inspired greater physical talent.

    With Zappa long gone, and Richard Pryor and Kurt Vonnegut having died in the last handful of years: America has lost its last great, evergreen social satirist of the later half of the 20th century. There are some decent and indeed quite good talent out there keeping the torch lit, like Bill Maher (too fucking self-satisfied and smug to reach Carlin greatness; the man needs to learn a lesson from Carlin’s humility) and Lewis Black (lacking that certain something to put himself over the masses), Howard Stern (too conservative and reliant on other writers and too myopic to cover the wide berth of social satire Carlin, Pryor and Zappa tackled, and too high on himself and with a false sense of humility) and Dave Chappell (too emotionally sensitive to his own status, perhaps too brilliant for his own emotional well being), and Paul Mooney, who is simply too low profile (but worked with Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock and Dave Chappell when they were at their peaks).

    So it goes.

    George is already missed.

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  3. He was quite a funny man. Still can’t believe I got away with using one of his books in my thesis.

    The dirty words routine should be used to test the English level of Chinese students who want to study abroad.

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  4. Thanks for putting me onto these clips, The “religion is bullshit” one is brilliant. What oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed. Why do people always think of God as a man? Because a woman would never fuck things up so badly! Great stuff. Check out some of Christopher (God is not Great) Hitchens’ recent debates for not so funny but equally devastating attacks on the silliness and immaturity of most religious belief.

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