Noted Air Force veteran George Carlin died last week. Coverage of Carlin’s death invariably focused on the seven dirty words but they’re a minor part of what he was about. Carlin’s whole outlook was that everything sacred needs to be mocked, poked and shit on and that includes people shocked by what was once called indecency.
On stage, of course, he often looked and sounded angry and the few times I watched or listened to him with people who didn’t like his thinking that was often their impression. To people who didn’t get it he was just some vulgar nut, angrily ranting about things. But the joke was on them, in fact the joke was even on some of the fawning members of the audience. Whenever Carlin would lambaste things that “piss me off” cheers would often arise from the crowd. The laughs came too, but the cheers bespoke an agreement with the anger. “Hey, those things piss me off too!” Except that for Carlin the anger was an act, not everyone seems to have gotten that.
Back in February, as publicity for his 14th (and final) HBO comedy show, Carlin was interviewed by Heather Havrilesky at Salon.com. It’s a great read and here’s the telling passage in response to a question about whether or not he’s a generally angry guy:
. . . I don’t lose my temper. I mean, I can get irritated, I can get mad and angry about something, which is a good, healthy thing, I guess, but no. Anyone who’s been around me for five minutes or five years would have to say that I’m pretty even-tempered, and I’m pretty open with strangers and fans and stuff.
The closest I can get to that [anger] is to say that, at some point there leading into the ’90s, I divorced myself from any stake in the human adventure or the American adventure. That sounds kind of pompous so let me just break that down. What I decided was that I didn’t give a fuck about what happens on this planet to these people. I mean, I see the nice things in people, I see the good things, but I also see what a depraved, sick species we are, the only species that kills its own for personal gain.
Carlin saw people for what we are (sick, disgusting and wonderful) and he happily included himself. Here was a man laughing at the whole world and everybody in it, and if you wanted to laugh with him you were always welcome. But if you didn’t want to laugh at some of the things he laughed at, and this guy joked about genocide, rape and natural disasters, well that just meant the joke was on you. He didn’t give a fuck what anyone else said or did because to him everything was funny.
He’s dead now, and in some ways that’s too bad, but in the grand scheme of things it’s pretty unimportant. It does give us a unique opportunity in terms of public mourning though. Usually when someone famous kicks off there are tribute articles and often they’ll include quotes from the family, acquaintance or the dead cunt’s spouse to the effect of, “Well he’s in a better place now”, “He’s looking down on us”, or “He would’ve enjoyed this”, etcetera. Not this time, the dead man himself had no use for preening displays of self serving emotion.
Carlin had the guts to acknowledge the most unpleasant truth of life: we’re all gonna die. What’s worse, once we’re gone nobody is going to care about it for very long. Most people avoid thinking about that, one’s intellect just kind of swims around it without ever acknowledging it, but this cocksucker dove right in. When an ordinary person talks about these kinds of downer topics it pisses everyone off. Carlin’s great talent was his ability to speak these unpleasant truths out loud and merely piss off most people. The rest of us doubled over laughing.
Like all good ex-Catholics Carlin detested piety. He saw it for what it was, a dishonest way to dodge intellectually repugnant things like death. Piety, like most self serving dishonesties, is a tool used by those who want to get away with things and still be thought virtuous. Poking fun at those motherfuckers is a bottomless well of comedy. The instant something is declared sacred the intellectual rot begins to set in and mockery is the only path to redemption.
Carlin questioned everything, especially the sacred things which Authority wants unquestioned. “Question everything”, it sounds like a platitude, and it is often deployed as one, but if you take it seriously it leads very naturally to where Carlin eventually found himself. If you’re not willing to automatically cede any credibility or authority to government, religion, or any other person or organization you’re left with a world of questions, most of which don’t have good answers. One of Carlin’s most enduring bits, I promise it’s the only one I’ll mention, is his reduction of the Ten Commandments:
Once you’re down to the Two Commandments (I. Thou shalt always be honest and faithful II. Thou shalt not kill) you’ve still got a decent set of rules for living your life but you no longer have the infrastructure of morality. The rituals, the ceremonies, the funny costumes, and, of course, the collection plate are all just a scam perpetrated by people who believe that they know better. It’s a means of control and the ornate buildings and elaborate histories are just decoration to obscure yet another unpleasant fact.
It may or may not be a healthy way to do things, but it is, to its core, an honest way to do things. All you’re left with, all you’ve ever had really, are yourself and the people around you. For a little while anyway, until we all die.
Tits.
