Ton Mile Trader

Class Clown: George Carlin RIP

Before getting to the tribute portion of this obit, I will start with the footnote. People who are only familiar George’s later work may not truly appreciate the comedic brilliance he displayed in his earlier days. Towards the back end of his career he veered, hard, towards political commentary while also gratuitously employing many of the seven words he is famous for reminding us that we weren’t allowed to say on television. His material became tedious and bitter – leading many first timers to his brand of humor to consider him extremely unfunny and unnecessarily vulgar. This is unfortunate. But with that out of the way, we can move on to the good stuff.

In his day, Carlin was a black-belt wise-ass with a complete mastery of the English language. His grip on the subtleties of communication allowed him to mock all aspects of everyday life. From the naïve check out lady who kindly asked you to “Have a Nice Day!’ <<Maybe I don’t want to have a nice day>>, to the airport public announcement person kindly asking you to “Get on the Plane” << No way , I’m getting in the plane. Let Evel Kneivel get on the plane!>>, no one was safe. And what exactly is “pre-boarding”, he wondered aloud. How can you board the plane before you board the plane? Good question, of which he had many. Another beauty, “Did you ever notice mice have no shoulders?”

And then there is this musing: “Did you ever notice that printed right on the cookie box it says, "Open here"? Well, what did they think I was gonna do? Move to Hong Kong to open up their cookies? Of course I'm gonna open 'em here. I'm gonna eat 'em here, I'd almost have to open 'em here. Thank God it doesn't say, "Open somewhere else." I'd be up all night tryin' to figure out an appropriate location.”

His most famous, and controversial, work involved the seven words you can’s say on television. Since this is a PG-13 rated report, we will not go into detail, but will end with his intro into this bit, which I find as brilliant as anything he did:

"There are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven of them you can't say on television. What a ratio that is: 399,993 to seven. They must really be bad."