Well, it seems as though every blogger is posting about the death of the great comedian, George Carlin. I’m glad to see this because he was a revolutionary comic. It seems as though Carlin died of heart failure on Sunday at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica. I got this news right when it came out (and it wasn’t even up on CNN yet) right after we wrapped on another episode of my radio show, The MT Ironstag Show (yes, I’m that shameless about my plugging).
It’s really a shame. I was fortunate enough to be able to see one of his acts here in Tucson and I remember thinking that he was starting to look frail. I think all of the drugs and alcohol probably didn’t help him much, but 71 is a long time to live. I’m sure he wasn’t afraid and didn’t even care much that he would die. As he once said in one of his sketches:
‘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.
And with that, thank you George Carlin. I guarantee you will be missed, even if you don’t want it.
And I will up the stakes on Jacob Karnas’ final words to Carlin with his famous “Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television”: Here’s to you, George: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.
