Today started out well enough. I’m only working through Thursday this week as Friday starts a 10 day vacation, so I was in reasonably good spirits this morning until…
I heard on the radio that George Carlin had died.
For a long time I’ve considered Carlin a hero of sorts. I’ve never had a real big desire to be a stand-up comedian. But George Carlin was one of those few performers who could accurately be described as a “wordsmith,” and as a person who also fancies himself pretty handy with the…what do you call it when you make with the words in a certain order, sentences…I’ve always greatly admired his skill with language.
And comedy.
One of the greatest pieces of spoken word, pretty much in the history of our species, is this one:
Much of my personal view of the world has been heavily shaped by George Carlin. I’m not sure that’s necessarily a great way to recommend one’s self to society at large, but there you are.
So that piece of news would be enough to ruin my whole week by itself, and then I go and read this article by Cory Doctorow that Cody’s Books is no longer. Granted, I don’t live in the bay area anymore, but Cody’s (well, a church down the street from Cody’s) is where I saw Neil Gaiman do a complete reading of Coraline. I still have my poster from the event, in fact. And even though I worked at Miscellaneous National Book Chain, I still shopped at Cody’s from time to time because I felt it served a really important function. Actually, had I lived in Berkeley and not San Francisco I would have preferred to work at Cody’s.
Today, my world has gotten quite a bit smaller, and quite a bit duller and I am very sad.
I’m just waiting for the news to break that Heroes has been cancelled….
the postal service – we will become silhouettes
Damn, damn, damn. Perhaps some local Normalinauts can get together and watch some George Carlin stand-up and laugh our asses off in tribute?
The world is worse off for losing George Carlin. He was one of those rare individuals that could make you laugh and think at the same time, a person who saw past the bullshit into what life really is (mostly still bullshit). Worse though (in my opinion at least) is the half-effort the media is putting in to the whole thing… the man had a lot more to offer than just his “seven words” routine… could we shift the focus around a little, maybe? No? Ah well.
this sucks indeed, i could not get into him that much but i did admire his ability to get people realize it was ok to think for themselves, his use of free speech is admirable.
I agree suavo. Where is the discussion of his contributions to children’s television as the conductor at Shiny Times station?
The only thing made appreciably better by the addition of “space” is “vampires”…for more on this, please see this work by Colin Wilson…
hmm It sucks to see another entertainer go. But to be honest i never really heard of him, Maybe ill youtube some more of his stuff =/
Also
A little piece of heaven- Avenged Sevenfold
Come on Jezmon, you and I both know Carlin’s most influential role was and always will be that of Rufus, perhaps the only character in modern cinema to blend drug references, time travel, and cross-dressing into one powerhouse of a character. Plus, he single-handedly helped Keanu Reeves develop his Ted Theodore Logan persona, which Reeves went on to portray in basically every movie he’s done ever since.
I like to think he made a difference.