A Tribute To:
George Carlin
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"I thought it would be nice to get a job at a duty-free shop, but it doesn't sound like there's a while lot to do in a place like that."
--George Carlin
George Carlin received two Grammys: for his albums "FM & AM" (1972) and "Jammin' in New York" (1993).
George Denis Patrick Carlin
12 May 1937, New York City, New York
22 June 2008, Santa Monica, California
George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.
Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves.
The first of his 14 stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on the flaws in modern-day America. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death.
In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor. He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Carlin was born in Manhattan, the second son of Mary Beary, a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun. Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.
Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old. After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem. Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home. He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana.
During this time he began working as a disc jockey on KJOE, a radio station based in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957
In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas. After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits.
Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night. Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios. Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.
In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were:
The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line")
Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'"
Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning."
Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known"
Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.
During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show. His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional", particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.
Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.
Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style.
In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine. The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)
The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words."
It was on-stage during a rendition of his Dirty Words routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album "FM & AM" had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album "Occupation: Foole", he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Sh-t!" and proudly announces his win to the audience.
Carlin was the first-ever host of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975. He also hosted SNL on November 10, 1984, and also appeared in sketches, whereas the first time he hosted he only performed stand-up and introduced the guest acts. The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series.
Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely appeared to perform stand-up, although it was at this time he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978. It was later revealed that Carlin had suffered the first of three nonfatal heart attacks during this layoff period.
n 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials.
Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. In 1991, he provided the narrative voice for the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, a role he continued until 1998. He played "Mr. Conductor" on the PBS children's show Shining Time Station, which featured Thomas the Tank Engine from 1991 to 1993, as well as the Shining Time Station TV specials in 1995 and Mr. Conductor's Thomas Tales in 1996. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand.
Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. He quickly included a variation of the "seven words" in the plot. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.
In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show: "I had a great time. I never laughed so much, so often, so hard as I did with cast members Alex Rocco, Chris Rich, Tony Starke. There was a very strange, very good sense of humor on that stage. The biggest problem, though, was that Sam Simon was a f--king horrible person to be around. Very, very funny, extremely bright and brilliant, but an unhappy person who treated other people poorly. I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."
In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published and sold over 750,000 copies as of 2001. Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart.
In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character.
In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards.
In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words," including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole", which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.
For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this f--king hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating:
"People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their f--king intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of f--king moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of f--king people with very limited intellects."
An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.
He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing, which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the impulse to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals.
On February 1, 2006, during his Life is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back."
Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr, Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film.
Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California. The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullsh-t," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country.
On June 18, 2008, four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., announced that Carlin would be the 2008 honoree of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which was awarded on November 10, 2008. Carlin thus became the award's first posthumous recipient, a decision the Kennedy Center made after consulting with both Carlin's family and PBS (which aired the ceremony). The comedians who honored him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a former Twain Humor Prize winner herself), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho.
In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born in 1963. In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's sixtieth birthday, in 1997.
Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.
In December 2004, Carlin announced that he would be voluntarily entering a drug rehabilitation facility to receive treatment for his addiction to alcohol and Vicodin.
Carlin did not vote and often criticized elections as an illusion of choice. He said he last voted for George McGovern, who ran for President in 1972 against Richard Nixon.
Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith (which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown), Carlin often denounced the idea of a god and pointed out the flaws in any organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show "It's Bad for Ya" where he mocks the traditional swearing on the Bible as being "bullsh-t", "make believe", and "kids stuff". In "It's Bad for Ya", Carlin has a skit about the ironic differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group which requires or bans the wearing of hats.
Carlin also joked in his first book, Brain Droppings, that he worshiped the sun, one reason being that he could see it. This was later mentioned in You Are All Diseased along with the statement that he prayed to Joe Pesci (a good friend of his) because "he's a good actor," and "looks like a guy who can get things done!"
In his HBO special Complaints and Grievances, Carlin introduced the "Two Commandments":
First: THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE HONEST AND FAITHFUL, ESPECIALLY TO THE PROVIDER OF THY NOOKIE.
And second: THOU SHALT TRY REAL HARD NOT TO KILL ANYONE, UNLESS, OF COURSE, THEY PRAY TO A DIFFERENT INVISIBLE AVENGER THAN THE ONE YOU PRAY TO, a revised "pocket-sized" list of the Ten Commandments ending with the additional commandment "Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself."
Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullsh-t," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show:
"I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse."
Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that in his view seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies.
Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position, among many others.
Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!"
In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as " an amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting."
A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a f--king chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one."
Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey.
On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, after experiencing chest pains. He died later that day at 5:57 p.m. of heart failure. Carlin was 71 years old. His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and he had further shows on his itinerary. In accordance with his wishes, Carlin was cremated, with his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held. Two of the networks he performed on changed their schedule in tribute to Carlin. HBO devoted several hours to broadcast eleven of Carlin's fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, 2008, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. Meanwhile, NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live which Carlin hosted.
Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Another tribute was the "Doonesbury" comic strip on Sunday, July 27, 2008.
Louis C. K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin.
Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to Carlin.
An episode of Larry King Live paid tribute to Carlin, featuring comics Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black. Carlin's daughter and his brother were also interviewed by King. The next day, The New York Times published a tribute to Carlin written by Jerry Seinfeld.
An oral history, edited by Carlin's daughter, Kelly, was published in 2009. The book contains stories from Carlin's friends and family and covers the considered high points of his career as well as the considered low, including his drug and alcohol addiction.
For a number of years prior to his death, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, planning to release it in conjunction with a second, long-worked-on project, a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy, covering essentially the same topics. After his death his collaborator on the projects, Tony Hendra, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book covers Carlin's life up to around Life is Worth Losing, with the final chapter detailing future plans, including the planned one-man show. The book was released one year and four months after Carlin's death. The audio version of the book was read by George's brother Patrick and featured an interview with Tony Hendra and George's daughter, Kelly.
Another book of his writings to his widow, Sally Wade, as well as the story of their courtship is due to be released in 2011. It will be called "The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade." The phrase in the title "The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade" was the note she found next to her computer after coming home from the hospital when he died. The book is the story of their love and their life together, as told by both of them. Many of the writings in this book have not been published before as they were private moments shared between Sally and George, but they enrich the telling of this story of the later years of his life. The book will be published by Simon and Schuster.
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The first time I saw George on the Flip Wilson Show, I was hooked. I've been a fan ever since.
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Has received two Grammys: for his albums "FM & AM" (1972) and "Jammin' in New York" (1993).
Starred in 14 HBO specials from 1977 until his death in 2008.
He was the first-ever host of "Saturday Night Live" (1975) on 10/11/75, as well as the first-ever host of "Fridays" (1980), an ABC show fashioned after "SNL".
Inducted into the Comedy Hall of Fame in November 1994.
Received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in January of 1987. It's located at the corner of Vine and Selma Streets, between Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards. Milton Berle presided over the ceremony.
Jack Burns and Carlin were a comedy team from 1960-1962. When they parted ways in 1962, Burns joined the Second City comedy group in Chicago, and Carlin pursued a solo stand-up comedy career.
The radio broadcast of an uncensored version of his routine "Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say on Radio or Television" became the center of a debate over censorship, and FCC legislation over profanity.
Was educated mostly in Catholic schools in New York City.
Some of his comedy influences include Spike Jones, The Marx Brothers, Danny Kaye, Jerry Lewis, Lenny Bruce and Bob Newhart.
His wife, Brenda Carlin, died one day before his sixtieth birthday.
Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith. Pg. 91-93. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387
Chosen as #2 in Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time (April 2004).
His list of the Seven Words You Can't Say on TV are referenced in Private Parts (1997).
Appeared in "The Simpsons" (1989) episode "D'oh-in' in the Wind," playing a former hippie. In a previous episode of the show, Krusty the Clown is told he's being sued by Carlin for stealing the "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television."
Daughter, Kelly Carlin-McCall, was born in 1963.
Irish-American.
Attended (but was expelled from) Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx, New York--the same alma mater as Regis Philbin and Martin Scorsese.
Has many popular writings on the Internet being falsely attributed to him, such as the anonymous commentaries "I Am a Bad American" and "The Paradox of Our Time," along with several lists of one-liner jokes. Carlin states on his website that he did not write them, and "nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it came from one of my albums, books, HBO shows, or appeared on my website.
Just before Christmas 2005, he experienced significant shortage of breath and other heart-related symptoms. On Christmas Day he entered Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills. During an eight-day stay he was treated for a lung infection and narrowed arteries. He received antibiotics and an angioplasty that included the placement of a double stent. The procedure was successful, but he was advised to take things slowly in the New Year.
Awarded the 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Father-in-law of Bob McCall.
Younger brother of Patrick Carlin.
He and his older brother Patrick were raised by a single mother in New York City. Their mother, Mary, died in 1984 at age 89.
Joined the U.S. Air Force as a radar technician.
Spent years writing a one-man show that he planned to do on Broadway before his death. The working title was "Watch My Language" or "New York City Boy".
Business partner and best friend of Jerry Hamza.
Second-born son of Patrick Carlin, Sr. and Mary Carlin.
Friend of Richard Belzer.
In 1983, he returned to Cardinal Hayes High School for the school's first Hall of Fame dinner-dance, and it was to honor Msgr. Stanislaus P. Jablonski. Jablonsik was the priest who told him that "maybe he should attend another school." (He did briefly and returned.) Although they were adversaries as Pricinple/Student they had a sense of respect for each other.
His first wife, Brenda Carlin, was always listed as Executive Producer on all his TV specials until her death. She died of cancer.
Worked with Jack Burns on Los Angeles' KNX-AM in the morning as the Wright Brothers.
Worked as a Disc Jockey at KXOL-AM 1360 in Fort Worth, Texas for nine months. He was hired on the spot by Program Director Bob Bruton. There he met newsman Jack Burns. They went on to work together as a comedy duo.
Worked as a Disc Jockey at KJOE-AM Shreveport, Louisiana.
Worked As a radio Disc Jockey in the North East of America.
Close friends with Joe Pesci and said he "prayed to him instead of God".
According to George in his A&E Biography profile, when he was young and would ask his mother what the meaning of a word was, she would invariably answer "Go look it up in the dictionary". He says his fascination with words, their meanings, and word play, is where is comedy routine comes from: The dissection of "words". Even his infamous "Seven Dirty Words" routine is about the meanings of these "bad" words.
Died two days before the 10th anniversary of his marriage to Sally Wade.
He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Live Theatre at 1555 Vine Street in Hollywood, California.
According to George Carlin's posthumously released autobiography "Last Words", he was planning to release a comedy concert movie called 'The Illustrated George Carlin' in the late 1970s, around the same time as Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (1979). He had part of his second comedy concert, On Location: George Carlin at Phoenix (1978) (TV), recorded on film and had planned animated segments and live-action reenactments of his bits (these animated segments would later wind up in his 1984 HBO concert George Carlin: Carlin on Campus (1984) (TV). The project went as far as pre-production and casting for the live-action segments, but was abandoned when Carlin ran out of money. He said he didn't regret it since the material wasn't up to his usual best and said it was part of his "micro-world" of stand-up.
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Most people are not particulary good at anything.
If acting was hard for me, I wouldn't do it, it is something that I like to do.
If someone loves you and they leave and don't come back, it was never meant to be. If someone loves you and they leave and come back, set them on fire.
When evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve.
Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.
Somehow I enjoy watching people suffer.
Heart disease has changed my eating habits, but I still cook bacon for the smell.
I'm completely in favor of the separation of church and state. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.
[March 1997] We use up words like "spiritual" so fast in this culture. Twenty years ago "spiritual" had a distinct meaning. But now there's a lot of jack-off thinkers who just love to talk about the spiritual. And there is a lot of bogus -- is "bogosity" a word? It should be -- a lot of bogosity in these spiritual seekers. So you have to find another way to express it. I just call it "how I fit.
I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.
I'm not afraid of heights, I'm just afraid of falling from them.
To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated, but not be able to say it.
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong.
Don't confuse my point of view with cynicism. The real cynics are the ones who tell you that everything's gonna be all right.
Dusting is a good example of the futility of trying to put things right. As soon as you dust, the fact of your next dusting has already been established.
Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.
The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, "You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done".
Standing ovations have become far too commonplace. What we need are ovations where the audience members all punch and kick one another.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
[in his will, regarding his funeral] I wish no public service of any kind. I wish no religious service of any kind. I prefer a private gathering at my home, attended by friends and family members... It should be extremely informal, they should play rhythm and blues music, and they should laugh a lot.
I enjoy criticizing on the basis of "It's you folks." Because I never felt a part of this, I never identified with a local group. I never belonged to any club, organization, or state. I love New York City, but that's a chauvinist thing. I suppose it's a belonging thing. I'm not proud of this country, I don't care what happens to it, I honestly don't give a sh-it if it all goes up in flames. Having that freedom just made the writing so much more fun.
I collected autographs as a kid - not in any sort of hardcore way, but just by hanging around the stage doors. And I loved Danny Kaye. He was in the stage show at Radio City, and I went and I stood at that door for over an hour. It was a rainy, cold day - I wasn't in the direct rain, but it was very cold and it was getting dark. And I stood there and waited for Danny Kaye, and he came and I was the only kid there. And he walked right past me. He wouldn't even say anything. And I did my little rap, "Oh please, please, please . . ." And then later I see him with these UNICEF kids, with 30 of them sitting on his lap, and I knew he was full of sh-t.
(On being fired from his Las Vegas lounge act in the the early 60s): I was fired for saying 'sh-t' in a town where the most popular game is called 'craps'.
That's my job: thinking up goofy sh-t.
Did you ever do this? Look at your dog and think of the saddest thing you can think of. It'll look like it's happening to your dog. All the sadness of the world is in the eyes of a dog.
Doing new stuff is a point of pride with me. People may not consider it so, but stand-up comedy is one of the performing arts, and artists are supposed to grow and evolve over time. Through the years, my technique has sharpened, my writing has improved and even my observations have grown richer. I can't do old material; I would feel like a failure. Essentially, this job is that of a writer, but a writer who doesn't produce new work all the time is not a writer - he's a typist.
Always do whatever's next.
As long as you have observations to make, as long as you can see things and let them register against your template, as long as you're able to take impressions and compare them with the old ones, you will always have material. People have always asked me: 'Don't you ever think you might run out of ideas? Don't you ever worry about not having anything to say anymore?' Occasionally that does flash through your mind, because it's a natural human impulse to think in terms of beginnings and endings. The truth is, I can't run out of ideas - not as long as I keep getting new information and I can keep processing it.
"If my teacher could have influenced my sexuality I would have turned out to be a nun." [During the 1970s, responding to the mistaken belief that gay people "recruit" children and shouldn't be teachers]
I'm a modern man, a man for the millennium. Digital and smoke-free. A diversified multi-cultural post-modern deconstructionist, politically anatomically and ecologically incorrect. I've been up linked and downloaded, I've been inputted and outsourced, I know the upsides of downsizing and all the downsides of upgrading. I'm a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond. I'm new wave, but I'm old school and my inner child is outward bound. I'm a hot-wired, heat seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice activated and bio-degradable. I interface with my database, my database is in cyberspace, so I'm interactive, I'm hyperactive and from time to time I'm radioactive. Behind the eight ball, ahead of the curve, ridin' the wave, dodgin' the bullet and pushin' the envelope. I'm on-point, on-task, on-message and off drugs. I've got no need for coke and speed. I've got no urge to binge and purge. I'm in-the-moment, on-the-edge, over-the-top and under-the-radar. A high-concept, low-profile, medium-range ballistic missionary. A street-wise smart bomb. A top-gun bottom feeder. I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps and run victory laps. I'm a totally ongoing big-foot, slam-dunk, rainmaker with a pro-active outreach. A raging workaholic, a working rageaholic. Out of rehab and in denial. I've got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant and a personal agenda. You can't shut me up. You can't dumb me down because I'm tireless and I'm wireless, I'm an alpha male on beta-blockers. I'm a non-believer and an over-achiever, laid-back but fashion-forward. Up-front, down-home, low-rent, high-maintenance. Super-sized, long-lasting, high-definition, fast-acting, oven-ready and built-to-last. I'm a hands-on, foot-loose, knee-jerk head case pretty maturely post-traumatic and I've got a love-child that sends me hate mail. But, I'm feeling, I'm caring, I'm healing, I'm sharing-- a supportive, bonding, nurturing primary care-giver. My output is down, but my income is up. I took a short position on the long bond and my revenue stream has its own cash-flow. I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds and I watch trash sports! I'm gender specific, capital intensive, user-friendly and lactose intolerant. I like rough sex. I like tough love. I use the "F" word in my emails and the software on my hard-drive is hardcore, no soft porn. I bought a microwave at a mini-mall, I bought a mini-van at a mega-store. I eat fast-food in the slow lane. I'm toll-free, bite-sized, ready-to-wear and I come in all sizes. A fully-equipped, factory-authorized, hospital-tested, clinically-proven, scientifically- formulated medical miracle. I've been pre-wash, pre-cooked, pre-heated, pre-screened, pre-approved, pre-packaged, post-dated, freeze-dried, double-wrapped, vacuum-packed and I have an unlimited broadband capacity. I'm a rude dude, but I'm the real deal. Lean and mean. Cocked, locked and ready-to-rock. Rough, tough and hard to bluff. I take it slow, I go with the flow, I ride with the tide. I've got glide in my stride. Drivin and movin, sailin and spinin, jiving and groovin, wailin and winnin. I don't snooze, so I don't lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hearty and lunch time is crunch time. I'm hangin in, there ain't no doubt and I'm hangin tough, over and out!
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