Remembering George Carlin

I am  pretty sad today, having just learned that comedian George Carlin has died.

Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, died of heart failure Sunday, June 22, 2008. Carlin went to St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California on Sunday afternoon, complaining of chest pain, and died at 5:55 p.m. PT. He was 71.

George wrote three best selling books and recorded twenty hilarious comedy albums during his career. During my high school days, when I was digging on The Allman Brothers and Marshall Tucker on one hand and KISS and Alice Cooper on the other, I found my laughs in the records of Richard Pryor and George Carlin. Carlin's Class Clown was probably my favorite comedy record of all time.

It seems George has kept me laughing my whole life. From the Hippie Dippie Weather Man ("With your hippie dippie weather, man.") to his "Seven Dirty Words" bit that prompted a landmark indecency case after New York's WBAI-FM radio aired it in 1973, Carlin not only made us laugh, he also made us think.

Most of George's routines were based on simply pointing out the obvious, like the fact that baseball is a game for "doves" and football is a game for "hawks." "Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park! Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium."

We sure will miss you George.

Keep it Real. Keep it Southern.

Buffalo

related tags

Read More...

Comments

Please login or you can to leave a comment.

If you aren't registered, Register Now to start leaving comments.